A Tortured Soul
by Tari J. Deitrich
Summary: Digit remembers Max well and especially remembers the day she exchanged her own life for his, making him believe she went offline. But when Digit comes across a gargoyle named Zhanne on Radopolis, he suspects she may not be who she says she is. Book #2 of Evil Within Trilogy.
1. To Radopolis

_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.__  
><em>

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><p>Chapter One<br>To Radopolis

_**Previously on Cyberchase: A Black Heart. . . **_

_Max looked at her father who now stood with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. "You heard what Master Pi wanted me to do, didn't you?" She asked.  
><em>

_Marbles nodded. "Affirmative. I can't say I approve." He told her._

"_I didn't expect you to, actually." Max said._

"_Max, I don't like the idea of you being out there trying to destroy somebody. Even if it isn't a good person." Marbles said._

"_I know." She nudged him with her muzzle and he leaned into her. "I take no joy in doing what he wants me to do. But it must be done."_

"_Negative, Max. It doesn't need to be done. You could let it go. Just, let it go."_

_Max pulled away from him. "Yeah, it does, Dad."_

"_Max! Just let it go!" Marbles told her._

_Max stared at him. Marbles waited and Max began singing._

"_Let it go.  
>Let it roll right off your shoulder.<br>Don't you know,  
>The hardest part is over.<br>Let it in.  
>Let your clarity define you.<br>In the end,  
>You will only just remember how it feels.<em>

"_Our lives are made  
>In these small hours.<br>These little wonders.  
>These twists and turns of fate.<br>Time falls away.  
>But these small hours,<br>These little wonders, still remain."_

_Max rubbed her muzzle against him. She loved how much he cared about her, but she couldn't let it go. _ He_ had done too much damage to her . . . _He_ had caused her too much pain._

"_I'm sorry, Dad. I can't let it go. I'm sorry."_

"_Max . . . I can understand why you feel you need to do this. But I can't condone what you're planning to do." Marbles said. "I forbid you from carrying out this terrible thing." _

_He folded his hands behind his back, officiously. Max hated seeing him like this and as much as she respected him, she felt she had to remind him of his position over her before things got out of hand._

"_It's not really up to you right now, Dad. Nor is it up to me."_

_Marbles actually gave her a headtilt. "Translate." He ordered._

"_The day Master Pi came to see if I could join the warriors, I made a promise that I would obey every order given to me by either him or the Red Warrior. I made the same promise the day I left Shangri-La. I promised Master Pi I would answer the gong when it rang. The gong only sounds when there is a mission to be had._

"_He rang the gong and I answered. He gave me a mission and I fully intend to carry it out with or without your blessing. Either way, you do not have authority over me in this matter."_

_Marbles understood. He hung his head. Max didn't like seeing him like this either. She felt guilty pulling the Shangri-La-Warrior card but it was the truth nonetheless. She approached him and rested a paw lightly on his shoulder._

"_Dad, please know I love and respect you. I take no joy in knowing I am to take the life of another borg but it must be done. If he can discipline me without a second thought and turn me into a beast using Magnetite, then consider what he can do to another borg. Consider what he can do to you. That's why I have to do it. I have the means and the tools necessary to do this job." Her paw slid to his back and she pulled him into her warm chest. "I don't do this out of disrespect for you, but for the safety of Cyberspace. That much has and always will be of great importance to me."_

"_Why? Why is this so important to you?" Ada asked._

"_Master Pi told me that if I do this one thing – not just for him but also for the entirety of Cyberspace – he can give me my body back. That's all I want is my body and my life back. I want everything back – everything that was taken from me when he took me away." She licked her father and mother gently with her tongue. "Please understand why I have to do this."_

"_As long as you promise me one thing." Marbles said._

"_What's that?"_

"_That once you destroy him, your desire to destroy will end there."_

"_Come on, Dad, I'm not a mindless killing machine. I might be a gargoyle now but that doesn't mean I lost all the borg stuff either."_

"_Promise me!"_

_Max stared at him long and hard. "I promise."_

_Marbles looked at the bright, pink eye locked in on his golden-brown eyes, and he knew he could not sway her from her mission. Although he didn't like the idea of Max turning into an assassin, he nodded. "Okay, Max. I understand. Please, be careful."_

_**And now, the conclusion. . . .**_

The southern bedroom located right off Motherboard's control center was a depressively empty and dusty place. The bed was still made and the possessions of the room's former occupant remained where they had been since _her_ disappearance seven years ago.

Digit LeBoid sat upon the bed's dusty covers and felt the unused pillow beneath his wing-feathers. He smiled to himself as he remembered waking _her_ from her sleep every morning. She had been his oldest friend since he came online nine years ago. She had believed Digit when he needed to tell someone about Hacker's plans to destroy Motherboard and she had been there to stop Hacker from stealing Motherboard's encryptor chip. She had stood beside Dr. Marbles, her father, as he banished Hacker from Control Central; draining Hacker of all his power before doing so.

But she had not escaped Hacker's wrath. Angry that a seven-year-old girl could defeat him and make him look bad, Hacker kidnapped her and punished her the worst way possible:

He had used Magnetite - a viscous material that effects all cyborgs within a four-foot range. At first she had seemed immune to it but then, the side-effects started kicking in. She was turned into a gargoyle - something unheard of since Magnetite was never meant to drastically change someone's appearance. Other than giving someone an aged appearance or big feet, never had Magnetite ever made a cyborg change species before.

Despite her change of species, Digit's friendship with her never wavered and she never forgot about him either. They used to curl up together in the darkest reaches of the Northern Frontier at night; her sleeping with her enormous, reptilian body wrapped around him and he in his sleep mode to recharge his batteries. Her warm-blooded skin against his metallic one. Claws curled inward to carefully cradle him in the catch of her throat.

The cyboid sighed. He knew it was useless trying to relive the memories Max Marbles presented him with. Last time he saw Max, she had angered Hacker for the last time and he turned one of his inventions on her. Digit had seen the flash of green light and heard Max's painful roar while the machine started Dematerializing her. Digit never saw her again.

Digit had escaped Hacker and had returned to Control Central where he was greeted with open the open arms of Dr. Marbles and Motherboard's warm words. As happy as Digit was returning home, he regretted having to tell Dr. Marbles that Max, his precious daughter, had not survived her ordeal with Hacker. To say that Marbles was devastated is a complete understatement and he took two weeks leave from his duty as Motherboard's repair specialist to search for Max's lingering data. Digit stayed behind, then, to do repairs as Motherboard requested.

Digit leaned his head back against the pillow, oblivious to the dust which normally left his beak stuffed and runny. His duties in Control central were done. All he wanted to do now was remember his friend, Max, as she was.

"Digit! Are you there?"

Digit sat bolt upright on the bed at Motherboard's call. Motherboard was a fairly excellent tenant as she said little to nothing at all. So Digit could be alone without truly being alone. But whenever she summoned him to the main bridge, Digit knew better than to linger. If anything, she could be in danger and the last thing Digit wanted was for Motherboard to go offline because of him.

"I'm right here, Motherboard!" He said, running as fast as he could into the room; wings open wide to keep his balance.

Motherboard regarded him. Her mismatched eyes full of fear from something only she could see. Digit knew that expression of fear. He had seen it all before since the day Hacker returned and planted a virus in her system. It was the kind of fear she reserved for only one person in all of Cyberspace.

"Hacker . . . Radopolis . . . Totally Rad Ring of Radopolis1. . . . Must retrieve quickly." Motherboard said. The virust prevented her from stringing more than a few words together.

"Totally Rad Ring of Radopolis? What's that?" Digit asked.

Motherboard quickly showed Digit a short description of the Totally Rad Ring of Radopolis which was a powerful device capable of granting the wearer whatever they wanted. Digit felt his coolant freeze. Hacker having his hands on any device of great power was a very bad thing. Even if Hacker didn't have a device of great power, he could still make something to fit his needs.

Like the Dematerializing device he turned on Max.

Digit quickly shook the thought from his mind. Now was not the time to think about Max. Max was now nothing more than a pile of ones and zeros floating around in Cyberspace. At least, that's what Digit assumed. The Doc never told anyone if he ever found a trace of Max's data - Digit had warned Marbles that Max's data may have changed since becoming a gargoyle.

"How soon can you get us there, Motherboard?" Digit asked.

"Fetch your four-person scooter. You're leaving immediately. I'll send for the kids." Motherboard said in a moment of strength that caused Digit to admire her will.

1

Radopolis was an awesome Cybersite. Quite literally. It was a place full of sports-savvy cyborgs; all professionals in the art of skateboarding, biking, scooters, and rollerblading. At one time, the Radopolis was bustling with sports competitions. And it was all guarded by King Dudicus, a close friend and loyal subject to Motherboard.

Now that Hacker had stolen the Totally Rad Ring of Radopolis, the Radopolans were struggling to do what they did best; compete. But all their attempts were done in vain. Hacker had wished away all wheels; grounding them where they stood. The Radopolans tried their best with what they had; molding stones, cans, and jars to their bikes and things to make them go. The entire site was thronged with chaos and everyone knew that Hacker loved chaos.

Three kids were flung out of their portal; landing on their feet and counting it as one of the few lucky landings they ever got when it came to exiting a portal.

"Whoa!" The boy Matt declared. "Hacker really has been here, alright. Look at this place."

Jackie, the fashion guru in the group, snatched Matt out of the way just as a cyclist thundered past them on a rather unstable bike.

"There's no telling what else Hacker will do with that ring." Inez, the youngest, said.

Just then, there was a light-hearted, exhilarating scream and the kids looked up in time to see Digit pop out of a newly formed portal and tumble to the ground. A scooter landed on top of him. But Digit didn't seem to mind. Quite the contrary, Digit got a little dinged up all the time.

"Let's go, Earthlies. Hacker set up a command post on Point Dune. Hop on." Digit beckoned; hoping aboard the scooter once he was free.

The three kids and their whacky bird friend road through town, looking around at all the havok caused by a single wish. They had to stop a couple of times to avoid dangerous sportsters, once at a blocked intersection because of a grounded train, and once because Matt broke the back wheel of their scooter while jumping the train. But the kids could not be swayed. They drew a new wheel out of a rock and Digit cut it out with one of his many beak-tools.

But, no sooner had they gotten close to Point Dune, then a tower of tires fell upon them. Stopping them in their tracks.

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><p>1Totally Rad Ring of Radopolis-episode "Borg of the Ring"<p>


	2. ScarFaced Monster

_Chapter_ _two._

_I don't own Cyberchase. Zip is mine.  
><em>

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><p>Chapter Two<br>Scar-Faced Monster

The tires were thick and hollow because there were no wheels. But they were still very heavy. They crushed in on the Cybersquad - surrounding them on all sides only to stop short of actually crushing them. But getting out proved difficult because the tires piled on one another and made the stack heavy. The Cybersquad resorted to yelling for help.

"Hey! Is someone in there?" A young, masculine voice called in through the tires.

"Yes! Please, can you get us out?" Inez begged.

"Hold on." The voice said. Then, "Over here, Zip. There's somebody trapped under here!"

A second voice joined the first - sort of feminine with a gruff edge. "Really?"

"Yeah! Dig, Zip. Dig." The first voice said.

There was a growl that sounded to Inez like "Shut up, Slider! I'm not a dog!" Then the other voice said, "Whatever! Just dig already!" There was a lot of grunting and the sound of tires being shoved aside before sunlight streamed in through a sizable hole. The Cybersquad looked up and gasped at a grizzly sight.

A largish, white-scaled monster stared down at them through strangely mismatched eyes. It had the head of a bear, the ears and mane of a young male lion, and the horns of a female mountain goat. It's skin was covered with white scales and one eye was pink. It took Inez a moment to realize the other eye - the left one - was actually a prosthetic. Weal-like scars criss-crossed over the cat-like muzzle, scalp, and forehead. The left forepaw and shoulder - barely visible over the tires - was also a machine painted white and etched in the criss-cross pattern similar to the monster's scales. More weal-like scars stretched on the beast's upper-torso and extended into its neck and chest.

"Did you get to them, Zip?" The masculine voice asked.

The monster - apparently Zip - moved aside to let a youthful boy with untidy brown hair step in. The young cyborg reached in and grabbed Inez's hand and pulled her out. He did the same thing for Jackie, Digit, and Matt. The Cybersquad thanked the boy who nodded and jumped back on his skateboard.

The boy was wearing a red and yellow hoodie over a white t-shirt and cargo shorts and tennis shoes. But the beast beside him was what caught their attention the most. The rest of its body was panther like with a long barbed tail and enormous leathery wings. It's left, back leg was also mechanical and was stylized to look like the rest of its body. Scars stretched over its rump and midsection - the beast seemed to be nothing more than metal, scars, and flesh. It was sitting on its haunches with its tail wrapped about its legs and paws. Inez approached the beast with her hand out.

"And thank you for getting us out!" She said.

"Wait, Inez! Don't go near it!" Digit warned, wing out to snag her other hand.

She looked at him. "What? why?"

"It's a gargoyle. They're one of the meanest, most vicious creatures in all of Cyberspace. You never want to tangle with them. They're unpredictable at best - there's no telling when they might attack. It's just better to leave them alone." Digit said.

The cyborg looked skeptically at Digit. "Who? Zip? She's about as harmless as they come. Besides, if she wasn't, King Dudicus wouldn't let her live here to begin with." He reached out and touched the gargoyle's robotic shoulder. "See?"

The gargoyle lowered her head and gently licked the cyborg's hand with a pink tongue - an action seemingly too dainty for her size.

"Anyway." The cyborg kid said. "I'm glad we could've helped, but now Zip and I need to get back to work. See ya around, I guess." With that, he pushed off the ground with his foot and his skateboard glided smoothly on the pavement; his gargoyle friend trotting alongside him.

"Wait. You can't leave us. Hacker's got a surveillance center up on Point Dune. You have to help us." Inez said, jogging to catch up.

Surprisingly, the gargoyle spun around and roared at Inez; maw open wide to reveal very sharp teeth. She stopped short of actually biting Inez, though the human girl had to jump back to avoid the snapping jaws.

"Not our problem." The cyborg kid said. "Come on, Zip."

"But he has the Ring of Radopolis!" Matt said.

"He's going to use it to take control of Cyberspace and destroy Motherboard!" Jackie said.

The gargoyle closed her mouth and her tail whipped around and landed in front of the cyborg kid's skateboard. "Sly, I think we should help."

The cyborg kid put his foot down, eyes downcast. "Just became our problem." He put his hand to his chin as though in thought. Then, glanced at his companion. "Zip, you gather anything that rolls: balls, cans, jars, stones - anything and everything. You have five minutes."

Zip nodded and took off with a great push of her massive wings and the cyborg waved for the Cybersquad to follow him. He led them to a large garage where he set about gathering tools and anything sturdy enough to support some weight. He welded some pipes to the bottoms of a tennis racquet, a toaster, a suitcase, and a box. Then, he threaded steel rods through the pipes. By the time he was done, Zip had returned to the garage with a blanket of junk wedged in her teeth. She set the blanket down on the cyborg's work bench before speaking.

"This is all I could find. I don't know what good it would do."

The cyborg shifted through the items. "It's okay, Zip. We just have to make due with what we got. Just start shaping and punching holes through things while I figure out what to bolt these things on with."

"Washers and nuts might do the trick, Sly." Zip suggested.

"That's true." The cyborg kid said. "You start working on your project while I get that box of stuff." With that, he ran off into another room.

Zip grabbed a tennis ball from the mess of things she picked up and jammed a claw through one end then the other before grabbing another. When each object was finished, she passed them off to her companion who would put the rods through the holes and bolt them on with a washer and a nut.

While they were working, Digit stared at Zip as though he recognized her from somewhere but couldn't figure out where. The gargoyle shifted from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable with the cyboid's gaze.

"WHAT?" Zip demanded, head jerking upright.

"I - I'm sorry! I just - I thought I knew you from somewhere!" Digit said, adverting his eyes quickly.

Zip snorted. "No chance of that. Not very often you come across a mishappen gargoyle like me." She held up her left arm and flexed it around a stone. Rock dust crumbled between the finger-like appendages. Zip sanded the stone against the inside of her scale-covered forearm until it was perfectly round then punched a hole in the exact middle and passed it off to the cyborg kid. "The left portion of my body is mechanical, now. But that's okay. A gargoyle isn't a gargoyle if it isn't whole."

"How did you get to be that way?" Jackie asked.

The cyborg kid and Zip stopped what they were doing and looked at each other before returning to work.

"Let's just say Zip suffered a lot at the hands of the came borg you're looking for now." The kid said. "He tried to make her his personal slave and she wouldn't accept it. She managed to escape but not before having her arm, leg, and face dematerialized."

The Cybersquad flinched - the scars on Zip's body now resembling remains of her deconstructive binary code. Zip continued speaking on.

"The warriors of Shangri La found me and took me in - caring for me and my injuries as best they could. They called Dr. Marbles and Lady Ada Lovelace who went to work making me these limbs and this face -" She touched her prosthetic eye with her good paw. " - Once I was well enough to leave, the warriors sent me on my way. So, I came here looking for a place to live. Slider, here, took me in."

"Someone had to, Zip." Slider said, flicking the new skateboards at the Cybersquad.

"You expect these to work?" Matt demanded, ignoring a growl from Zip that sounded close to "Watch it, bub!"

"Got any better ideas?" Slider demanded.

"Well . . . no." Matt admitted, picking up his toaster skateboard.

"If there are no more objections, we need to come up with a plan to better defeat him before he causes more havoc." Zip said.

"What kind of plan?" Inez asked.

Slider produced a map and flattened it out on the floor. "His survaillence post is here - Point Dune. The safest place for the ring would be here - the Circle of Supreme Safety. The problem would be finding the Circle of Supreme Safety and we would need to get the ring there before nightfall."

"So, why don't we split up into two groups? One to get the ring from Ha -" Matt began and a warning growl throbbed through Zip's throat. Matt glared at her. " - what is your problem?"

"Just don't say his name around Zip. You can say anything else that refers to him without saying his name and she would know who you're talking about. But using his name is a good way to get deleted. Like I said, Zip suffered a lot at his hands and she doesn't forgive easily." Slider said.

"Neither would you if you were being electrocuted within an inch of your life." Zip said, teeth showing through leathery lips.

"True." Slider said. Then, he went back to the map. "Anyway, I agree with you. One group should retrieve the ring and the other needs to find the circle. Group one will meet up with group two once the ring is retrieved. Besides, group two will have to do the difficult part - finding the exact center of the circle. You have to find the exact center otherwise the circle won't work."

"I'll take group one to Point Dune." Zip said. "I've been there a few times before and I can get you there a little bit faster."

"That's means I'll have to go with group two." Slider said. "I can help you find the circle."

With that, Digit and Matt volunteered to go with Zip, Jackie and Inez went with Slider - much to their glee. Zip took off with Digit and Matt skating beneath her. Matt grumbled about Zip not bothering to give them a ride but Digit explained that gargoyles didn't like people trying to ride on their backs.

"You can be sure you'll never get a ride on a gargoyle's back so don't even bother to ask." Digit said.

"Fine. By the way, what do you think of Zip and Slider?" Matt asked.

"Slider's an okay guy, I guess. He's done nothing except try to help us. And he took a gargoyle in which means he can't be all that bad. There aren't a lot of people who would accept having a gargoyle under their roof." Digit said.

"And . . . Zip?"

"Well," Digit looked up at the circling figure above them. "I think there's more to Zip than meets the eye - more to her than what she's saying. I just don't know what, yet."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I feel like I've known her from somewhere."


	3. Zip's True Face

_Chapter_ _three._

_I don't own Cyberchase. Zip is mine.  
><em>

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><p>Chapter Three<br>Zip's True Face

"How do you mean?" Matt asked, kicking off the ground with one foot to propel his skateboard forward.

"There's just something weird about her." Digit mused.

"Like what?"

"Well, she's comfortable around cyborgs which is very uncommon among gargoyle. If you knew the history gargoyles and cyborgs have with each other, you would understand."

"So tell me." Matt prompted.

"Well, gargoyles are living beings. Cyborgs are too but not in the same way gargoyles are. See, gargoyles are made up of flesh and blood. Cyborgs are made up of pieces of machinery that acts like a living body - they have to eat and sleep just like you do. But, in Cyberspace, we're all the same. We all have a binary code within each of us."

"You mean like DNA?"

"Sort of. Except, you can't physically pull DNA apart, nor can it become damaged. Even if you lose an arm or a leg, the code for that limb still exists. Binary codes are different. If you pick off one piece or item of the code, the entire structure falls apart. A part of your body could be turned into something else or that part could disappear completely. It's dangerous to fool around with DNA but even more so when it comes to fooling around with binary code. Plus, you can't fix the binary code without messing with the other numbers around it."

"So, how is this history?" Matt said after a long pause.

"Nobody is really sure where gargoyles came from. Cyborgs were created as programs long time ago but the gargoyle's existence is questionable. Some speculate that a long-ago ruler of Shangri-La made them to be guardians of his Cybersite when Warren the genie attempted to become the supreme ruler of Cyberspace. But after Warren was arrested and grounded for his insurrection, the gargoyles were abandoned and left to their own devices. They tried to live peaceably with the rest of Cyberspace but were often regarded as evil. Some Cyber-citizens actually went as far as to form hunts to destroy them."

"So, some of those people are the reason why gargoyles despise cyborgs?"

"A little. It's not a piece of history we're actually proud of, as you can imagine. In some cases, many of our history books don't even have that bit. Anyway, occasionally you might run into a gargoyle but as long as you keep your distance they won't usually bother you."

Matt looked up at Zip who circled overhead once then dropped down onto a patch of sand. "Is there anything else that's strange about her?" He asked.

"Yeah. Her story is one I've heard before. Kidnapped at a young age; made into his personal slave; electrocuted within an inch of her life; escaped and partially-dematerialized. I once knew a cyborg who suffered the same - if not similar - problems. But - maybe I'm just being paranoid - this cyborg was shut down a long time ago."

"You are being paranoid, Didge." Matt said.

The cyboid shrugged his wing joints. "I suppose I am. I don't even know why I'm bothering to think about Max at a time like this. Max doesn't exist anymore and there's no way Zip and Max are even alike."

"So, try focusing more on the mission then, Didge." Matt suggested.

"I'll try." Digit said.

They skated to a halt right behind the gargoyle who stared up at an enormous dune. Mismatched eyes peering at it with an intent Digit deemed unnatural for gargoyles.

"He's there." Zip said, answering Matt's unvoiced question.

"Okay, how are we going to do this?" Matt asked.

"Look, I brought you guys here. I have to take you to the Circle of Supreme Safety. Chances are, once I see him I won't be able to stop myself from shutting him down. I'll have to stay here. You two do whatever you need to get that ring away from him." Zip said.

"Fine." Matt said, crossing his arms. "But just how are we going to do this?"

"Easy. Just get up there and steal the ring. It's as simple as that." Zip said.

"It's not entirely that simple, Zip." Matt said. "Our plans are usually more elaborate than that."

Zip rolled her one good eye. "Fine. Try this. Somebody distract him, somebody else grab the ring, we all start running, I zap him when he starts chasing us."

"Zap?"

Zip held up her left arm; the claws splayed and bent inward toward a small spike that stuck out from her palm and an electrical current formed between each tip to the spike.

"Electricity. There's enough here to cross anyone's wires for a limited amount of time. All he'll feel is a small jolt and he'll be out long enough for us to get away."

Digit hesitated, eyes on the white sparks flickering between her fingers. "Uh, it won't actually hurt him will it?"

Zip stared at him. "As lovely as it sounds to me - and as much as I want to hurt him because he hurt me - it won't actually hurt him. It'll just bite a little."

"Okay." Digit said with uncertainty.

And so, the plan went on as planned. Hacker's first wish had been to have his own hair; replacing his wig with a headful of long, white-gold hair which he groomed and fawned over for hours on end - brushing out tangles and snipping split ends.

When Digit saw this from their viewpoint from a small outcropping, he immediately came up with a plan playing on Hacker's vanity. Digit added a wig, some sunglasses, a trench coat, and a French accent. Then, he appeared at Hacker's workstation with a camera and posed as a photographer for Vanity Fair. Hacker took the bait and even removed the ring at Digit's prompting because it "causes a glare from ze sun across ze lens."

"Can't have that, can we?" Hacker said, with a laugh.

No sooner had he put the ring aside than Matt snatched it up and shoved it into his backpack; signaling to Digit who took a few posed snapshots and ran off. Not without leaving a warning to Hacker to "watch out for split ends".

"Split ends? That's impossible! I won't let it happen! Where's - Where is my ring?" Hacker bellowed, having reached for the ring and discovered it missing. He glanced up and saw Digit and Matt running down the slope to a pair of makeshift skateboards. Hacker bellowed with rage and yelled for Buzz and Delete to stop them.

Of course, Hacker's henchmen were useless when it came to apprehending Hacker's foes, but were even more useless when it came to facing off against a gargoyle. Zip snatched both robots off the sandy hill, flew upward, and threw them back onto Hacker's work station. Hacker growled at them, having missed Zip while getting up from his chair. He ran after the two culprits who were already skating off. But his attention span on them was shortened when he heard a thud and turned to see a white-skinned, scar-covered gargoyle. His mouth opened in horror.

"I know you! But . . . it can't be! I destroyed you!"

"Correction." Zip said. "You destroyed half of me." She plunged her left hand into his chest and he crumpled onto the sand; his wires temporarily crossed.

With Hacker downed, Zip hurried after the kids, grabbed them from their skateboards, and shoved them up onto her shoulders.

"I thought you said you couldn't expect a ride on a gargoyle's back, Didge!" Matt yelled over the turbulent wind.

"Normally you wouldn't." Digit yelled back. "But Zip isn't like any other gargoyle."

"Just accept it and be grateful." Zip snapped in a tone so harsh Matt and Digit fell silent.

They clung to ridges down her back they hadn't noticed before while Zip was careful not to fly to hard and make them slide off. Finally, they landed at the Circle of Supreme Safety where Slider, Jackie, and Inez had just finished figuring out where the exact center of the circle was.

"Are you sure it's the exact center?" Zip asked, uncertainly.

"It is, Zip. I watched them mark it." Slider said, patting her mechanical shoulder while Matt and Digit dismounted. "Have you guys got the ring?"

Matt took the ring from his backpack and showed it to Slider. "Yep. Got it right here. Thanks to Zip who stalled him long enough to get it away."

"What'd you do, electrocute him?" Slider asked.

Zip smiled. "Just a little bite to cross his wires a bit."

Slider took the ring and strode purposefully to the center of the circle; stopping short of dropping the ring onto the center mark to turn and grin at Zip.

"You know, you could use this to get rid of you-know-who and get your body back just like Master Pi promised." Slider said, waving the ring around.

Zip glanced at Digit who was still staring at her. "Not a bad idea, but my task was to shut him down. If I do that with the ring, then his shut down would only be temporary because the Circle will dispell every wish ever done on the ring."

"Oh yeah." Slider said, he lowered the ring to the peg. "Well, you know, you could use this to get your body back . . . temporarily of course. That is what you would wish for, would you, Max."

"What did you just call her?" Digit asked in surprise.

Zip's jaw was set. "Give me the ring." She ordered, tail stretched out to Slider.

Slider dropped the ring onto her tail and she flipped it onto her snowy head, took a breath, and said in a clear voice, "I wish to show my friends who I truly am."


	4. Max's Tale of Pain

_Chapter_ _four. I should probably stop telling you what chapter it is now, shouldn't I?  
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_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.  
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><p>Chapter Four<br>Max's Tale of Pain

Everyone watched in horrified fascination as Zip took on a new form. The gargoyle's skin split down the center of her belly like a zipper had just appeared. From its depths, a young female cyborg stepped out and cast aside the gargoyle skin which vanished; the ring still on her head.

She was nearly as short as Inez but her features were harder and more aggressive looking than the human girl and her brown eyes were full of anger; the reflection of a tortured soul. Her face resembled that of Dr. Marbles, a friend to the Cybersquad, and her short brown hair was disheveled. She wore a red gi with a red cloth belt around her narrow waist, a pair of nunchuks poking out of the belt.

"Max?" Digit asked, eying the cyborg in surprise.

She took a breath. "Yeah. It's me, Didge."

"MAX!" Digit ran to her and she knelt to embrace him; allowing his wings to encircle her neck and shoulders. The two remained in a huge hug for a time, then broke away.

"But . . . how? I - I could've sworn you were gone! I heard you - when the Dematerializer went off - I heard you scream!" Digit said.

Max nodded. "That you did. And, for a moment, I thought I was gone too. I was in too much pain. I almost didn't make it to Shangri-La. But, as you can see, I did. And you know the rest of the story."

"But, why didn't you come find me? Didn't you know I was waiting to hear some news - even if I had my suspicions that you were gone? Didn't you know I missed you?" Digit asked.

Max rose and folded her hands behind her back. Her eyes closed and tears filtered to bottom of her eyelids and streamed down her cheeks in two, tiny tracks. "Believe me, Digit, I wanted to. When Master Pi discovered it was me under all those scales and muscles, and since he knew the history I had with that monster borg, he gave me an assignment. The first assignment I've had in a while. The last one I had when I was with them was on protection detail - protect Motherboard - and that I did. The one I'm on now, I thought was going to be easy. All I had to do was force all my hatred and anger into this one task and he would no longer exist." She opened her eyes to the dumbstruck faces of the Cybersquad. "That's right. Master Pi assigned me the job of unplugging the monster."

"Master Pi assigned you?" Jackie asked, remembering how Master Pi detested violence.

"Yea-s." Max said with a slow nod.

"Why?" Matt asked, taking a step forward. "And how do you know it was Master Pi, anyway? He hates violence! I highly doubt even the good Master would send someone on a mission to delete Hacker."

Max's hand fell on her nunchuks. "Just because I'm a cyborg now doesn't make me any less dangerous to you. So, please, don't say his name." She said. When Matt mumbled an apology and took a step back, her hand dropped from her hip and returned to her back. "It was Master Pi. And yes, he dislikes violence. But, this was a special assignment and he had only one requirement: That I uses a little force as possible to delete him. And, like I said, the monster and I have a history."

"Yeah, you told us about your whole ordeal with him." Matt put in.

Max fixed him with an intense stare. "There's more to the story than that."

"Like what?" Inez asked.

Max sat down on the ground and everyone else followed suit. Everyone could guess this would be a long story and judging by the distance of the sun from the horizon, they had some time left to put the ring into the circle.

"Cyborgs are not born, they are made. Though, like everything that is alive, they have the ability to grow. But, making a cyborg is a long and tedious task that involves figuring out what you could build them for - each borg has a purpose in Cyberspace and, therefore, is created with the correct program in place and the right tools to do it. There's like an entire list of things you need to do before you can make a cyborg. You need a purpose - which is obvious. You need to do research to figure out which tools are appropriate for the designated purpose. You need to write programs to put into the borg for that purpose. You need to design the borg and buy the tools to build it. When that's all done, you have to fill its memory with everything it needs to know about its task. Then you need to activate it. I, too, was created with a purpose but my purpose is more subtle than others, and a little more sentimental.

"See, Dr. Marbles, friend to Motherboard, was a little lonely. He found a friend in Lady Ada Lovelace, but she was always off inventing things. So, Dr. Marbles decided to make a child - a daughter - who could stay by his side and help him with inventions and stuff. I am that child."

"Wait!" Inez said. "Dr. Marbles had a daughter?" She faced Digit. "How come nobody ever said anything? How come the doc never said anything?"

"Did anyone ever ask?" Max put in before Digit could say anything.

Inez looked away, sheepishly. "Well, no. But still . . . why weren't you mentioned?"

"Part of it being because you came a few years after my term of 'exile'. Oh, don't worry, it's not because of criminal activity or something like that. I simply exiled myself so I could focus more on how I was going to delete the monster. The other part being because the Doc won't tell anyone anything unless it is the answer to a question. The question here being, 'Did you ever have any children?'."

The three humans nodded.

"The answer to that would actually be he had two kids. But one was less of a kid to him and more of an assistant. But we fought like siblings - perhaps more-so because I disliked him from the beginning. No, I wasn't jealous. I served my purpose everyday. I stood by his side and helped him make repairs and upgrades. I invented things with him. I traveled to meetings with him. The fact he had a daughter was fairly well-known in Cyberspace but when I disappeared and was transformed into a gargoyle with the use of Magnitite and was nearly deleted with the Dematerializer, my existence wasn't so well-known. People naturally assumed I had been deleted. Dad and I realized that was for the best. I could roam about Cyberspace freely without the monster chasing me which would give more time to whip up the courage to delete him."

"Is that why you haven't deleted him, yet? You don't have enough courage?" Jackie asked.

Slider snorted. "She has enough courage, alright. But it's just a matter of honor. See, it's considered a crime to delete anyone no matter what sort of horrible things they may have done. That and . . . well, Max had better tell you."

"Well, like I said, it was fairly well-known the Doc had a daughter. What is also well-known is that he made an assistant. Someone with more knowledge on the inner workings of Cyberspace. One that could help him more on Motherboard's repairs. What isn't well-known is that assistant was the monster. That's right. The monster is my brother though I take no joy out of claiming him as such.

"See, I left Control Central because I wanted to become a warrior of Shangri-La. Dad didn't really want me to go because he had not built me for that purpose. But he imbued in me the gift of free-will - something all inventors must do when they make cyborgs. And he knew I could be very stubborn and eventually let me go. Apparently he got lonely again because when I came back, the monster was there. Dad introduced him to me as his assistant but I recognized Dad's handiwork."

"So, your father invented Ha- I mean, the monster?" Inez asked.

"Yes. He takes no joy in knowing he developed the one thing that is a threat to all of Cyberspace. He wanted an assistant and that was all the monster was to him, nothing more. But, from the very beginning, I despised him. We verbally fought, constantly. And most of our words toward each other wasn't the playful banter one would expect between sibling borgs. These were mean-spirited arguments meant to hurt each other. I will say something good did come out of his existence though. Digit."

Digit blushed. "Yeah. I was meant to assist him but I spent a lot of the time hanging out with Max."

"He also invented Buzz and Delete. I suppose you could consider Digit, Buzz, and Delete to be his kids, and my nephews. I could lay claim to them - all of them - because they're pretty harmless for the most part. They just like to act tough when really they're pretty sweet." Max said.

"So, what happened between you and him anyway?" Matt asked.

"He tried to destroy Motherboard by removing her encryptor chip. I stopped him and he was exiled to the furthest reaches of Cyberspace. But he did a lot of things while he was exiled. He came back and kidnapped me and punished me for my 'insurrection'. My stopping him had been commemorated by Cyberspace. He saw it as a crime against him and he punished me. But that only provoked my anger toward him. In that moment, I promised Dad and Motherboard that I would delete him."

"Why does it have to be you?" Inez asked.

"Besides Motherboard, I'm the one who suffered the most at his hands. And, with all her power, Motherboard can't delete someone even if she wanted to. It has to be someone else. Someone who won't abuse this power. Someone she knows and trusts. A person who is loyal to her no matter the circumstances.

"I've been loyal to Motherboard all my life. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't exist. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have a place in Cyberspace. So, I must be the one to take down the evil that thrives in this world."

"Still, why does it have to be you? Why can't it be the Doc or Digit?" Matt asked. "Not that I want Digit to delete someone, but I still don't get why it has to be you?" He put in as an afterthought.

Max closed her eyes and breathed deeply. It appeared as though she was trying to control her temper. "Remember what I said about the inventor having to put in data on their specific task? Well, Dad copied a lot of his own knowledge from his brain and put it into mine. When Dad invented him, he put copied the same amount of knowledge from his brain and put it into his. Our brainpowers are the same. Of course, Dad could also be the one to delete him, but Dad was the one who created him. For that very reason, Dad cannot turn him off."

Max reached up and removed the ring. She stared at it a moment as though in deep thought. "The use of this ring gives me a great many ideas, none of which I can take action. I could wish him away, return the Good Vibrations of Shangri-La to its former state, give Radopolis back their wheels, remove the virus from Motherboard and stop the dismantling process, and I can keep my own body. I can do a great many things with this ring and those actions will remain as long as I keep the ring with me. But, someone else would want to use the ring and I cannot be sure if their intents and purposes are good. So the ring belongs here - in the Circle of Supreme Safety. I will just have to find another way to shut him down without it."

She handed the ring back to Slider.

Just then, a stone appeared out of nowhere and struck Max on the shoulder. Max turned with a growl and the kids turned too. They saw Hacker standing on a rise not far from them. Another stone in his hand.

He glared at Max. "I'm not sure how you got away from the Dematerializer, Max, but it's a mistake I will soon amend."

"It's quite simple, Big Brother." Max said with a touch of humor in her voice. "Your aim is so bad, you missed me - sort of. As to the mistake you will soon amend, you're going to have to catch me and there's nothing in this world that can ever catch a gargoyle on the fly."

"Well, you're not a gargoyle right now." Hacker pointed out. "So I can catch you whenever I want."

"Not so, Hacker!" Slider said, dropping the ring onto the stake in the middle of the circle.


	5. End of a Spell

_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.__  
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><p>Chapter Five<br>End of a Spell

The instant the ring touched the circle, a strange and oddly horrifying thing happened:

The wishes made on the ring became obsolete - just as Max said they would.

Hacker's flowing, white-blonde hair suddenly turned black and shriveled up into his skull. Hacker wailed when he realized his own hair was now gone but he shrieked even louder when he was faced with Max's new form.

The ground suddenly lurched upward, forming a gargoyle-skin suit. The suit's maw was open wide and it crashed down upon Max's hunched form - she had fallen to her hands and knees like she was in pain when the ring was dropped into the circle - swallowing her whole. The muscles rippled beneath the scale covered skin and the claws (both mechanical and organic) flexed. Her barbed tail lashed about behind her and her wings extended. Scars stretched and relaxed with each movement she took.

Hacker shrieked again, threw the rock he was holding, and ran the other way. He only managed to take a few steps before Max was upon him. Her head snapped down with her mouth open; engulfing Hacker's head completely. With his upper-torso completely engulfed in her mouth, she picked him up ever so slightly; his ridiculously tiny legs kicking from between her teeth. The more he struggled the tighter her jaws clenched.

She lowered her head just a little bit and, with a powerful twist of her head, she lifted him off the ground and sent him flying off to heaven-knows-where; his yell of adrenaline heard for miles.

Max shook her head, her pink tongue flicking between her fangs as though it was tainted with a terrible taste - probably the stinking wig gel he uses had been smeared all over her taste buds.

"I was afraid this would happen. Yick." She growled. "Sly, remind me never to attempt to eat his head again."

Slider laughed. "Don't worry, Max. I will." He said, approaching her and giving her a not-so-gentle slug to the shoulder.

She grinned at him and slugged him in return with her tail to his back; Slider stumbled and laughed again.

Max sat back on her haunches and looked apologetically at the kids. "Sorry you had to see that."

"I was wondering, what you were trying to do?" Inez asked, timidly. "You weren't going to eat him were you?"

Max fixed her with a hard stare. "That thought did cross my mind, but as soon as my tongue came in contact with his hairgel, I knew it was a bad idea. I'll be tasting that stuff for a month!"

They remained silent for a moment. The humans trying to decide how to respond to Max's answer and Max remained deep in thought. Slider started lounging against her organic forearm like it was a pillow and Digit had gathered enough courage to sit between her shoulder blades with his head entrenched in her mane.

"So, what's going to happen now?" Digit asked.

"I don't know. I obviously can't stay here because here will be the first place he'll look. So will Shangri-La, Control Central, and Wyvern – the Gargoyles' homesite. I'll have to go to a place he won't think to look. A place I'll be free to meditate and think about everything I'm about to do. It's stuff I don't want to do, but stuff I have to do. Otherwise, the whole of Cyberspace will be in danger every day he exists."

"Will we ever see you again?" Inez asked, gently touching Max's shoulder.

Max looked at her with a small smile on her scarred face. "Oh, quite possibly. Cyberspace isn't as big as you think. It just looks big and most of it hasn't been explored."

"It looks like you know how to handle yourself and you know how to handle you-know-who." Said Jackie. "And we don't want anything bad to happen to you but . . . if we need you - "

"You can call me." Max said.

"How?" Jackie asked.

Max asked for all of them to turn their Sqwackpads over. Then, rising onto her back legs, she flipped a couple snaps open on her prosthetic arm and detached it. There was a peg near the shoulder where the arm popped into the socket. Max laid the arm out flat and lined up the Sqwackpads by each finger. Then, with her free hand, she peeled back a layer of metallic skin – exposing a keyboard – and began punching numbers in. Cables shot out of the fingertips and hooked into the Sqwackpads. Immediately, the screens were filled with information.

"There." Max said, punching in yet another code making the cables retract. "I just gave you my serial number. If you ever need me for anything, just hit the plus button. I'll be there as fast as I can."

"Gee, thanks. " Matt said, taking his Sqwack. "Just wondering, is there anybody else that has this?"

"Motherboard, Dad, Lady Lovelace, and Slider have it. Motherboard's got it in a sub-secret file that's impossible to hack so it's safe from anybody who might try to lure me into a trap." Max said. "We've been taking lots of security precautions with my location. We don't want him coming after me before I'm ready."

Max popped her prosthetic arm back into place and flipped the snaps shut. Then, she passed the other Sqwacks back to their owners.

"Excuse me." Inez began. "But how is that file Motherboard has impossible to hack? You can hack anything as long as you know the codes or where to find it."

Max grinned a big, toothy grin and shook her head. "Not this one. This is a special kind of file. The password and codes change all the time and only Motherboard knows what the code will be next time. Not to mention, anyone who does try to hack it gets a scramble of numbers and a virus capable of crashing entire systems - that was my idea, by the way, I thought it would be rather poetic." She looked up at the sky and grinned as though she had just thought of a good joke.

"What?" Jackie asked.

"The virus she mentioned is based off the same formula as the one Motherboard has inside her now. So anyone who tries to hack it from an external source – meaning not directly from Motherboard's terminal - will get infected from the virus." Slider said. "This was all Max's idea. She's very good at creating viruses, not so much at getting rid of them. And all she did was copy the formula from you-know-who's virus into the security system. Since Motherboard is already infected with the virus, Max set up a new firewall around the sub-secret file with a backdoor that gets opened if somebody tries to hack it. Motherboard can drop and raise the firewall at anytime to access the sub-secret file without being infected because Motherboard knows the secret code to keep the file's virus at bay."

"So, there's actually two viruses in Motherboard right now?" Digit asked, indignity. "When did you do this?"

"When you were out doing an errand with Dad." Max said. Her barbed tail lifted Digit off her shoulder by his propeller. "I was pretty busy looking for a spot to lay low until the coast was clear. Then, Motherboard asked me to come in and do something with her system. She said you weren't there at that moment but she needed it done and I was the only other person she knew of that she trusted to do some maintenance.

"As to the virus question, there's only one. I just copied the virus in her system and placed it inside the sub-secret file. Before you ask, Motherboard already knows what I did with the file. She monitored the whole thing while I was doing it - she does that all the time, even with Dad. It's just her way of making sure nothing goes wrong. Plus, it's common procedure."

"Why didn't you stick around until I could came back to see you?" Digit asked. Obviously, he wasn't willing to let the issue go until every question had been answered. "I was back in two days. You could've waited."

"That's just the thing, Didge. I was done within a couple of hours." Max said. She held up her prosthetic arm. "When Dad and Lady Ada designed this arm, they also built a computer into it capable of programming computers of all kinds. Without it, it would take me several hours just to reprogram a system. But, with this, I can cut the reprogramming time in half - more or less. When Motherboard asked me to do some maintenance work on her, it would've taken me about eight hours or so just to clean her system of bugs and then install the serial code in the file - she asked for my serial code so she could track me better or call me if she needs me. In that case, I would've had to sleep at Control Central then been on my way. Either way, I would've been gone before you came back.

"At that time, I couldn't stay in one spot for too long, especially at Control Central. You-know-who had done his waiting. He had gathered enough energy to patrol Cyberspace in search of an opportunity to wreak havoc and chaos from site to site1. Of course, he thought he had deleted me so I was, for the moment, safe from him and his vile schemes. But I still had to be cautious about where I went and how long I stayed. If he even caught a whisper of my existence, he would – no doubt – come after me and try to delete me again. Next to Dad, I am the biggest threat to his plans. I have the power and the means to make him non-existent. Being deleted would screw up his plans for Cyber-domination. Not to mention, he's actually afraid of me."

"I would be too." Slider said. "You're big, you're strong, you're deformed, and you look like a monster on your worst days. And your temperament has changed since he changed you into a gargoyle."

"Yeah well, being tortured and mutated tends to do that to people." Max said, with a growl. She rose onto all fours and looked up at the sky. "I probably should be getting going. Remember guys, if you ever need me, just call and I'll be right there."

Max went from person to person and gently licked their faces with a dainty, pink tongue. Then, she ran toward the nearest hill; flapping her leathery wings until they caught the wind and lifted her off the ground.

Digit, the kids, and Slider waved good-bye to a rogue gargoyle who was unlike any creature the Cybersquad had ever seen before.

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><p>1"Wreak havoc and chaos from site to site" - Lost my Marbles, Cyberchase 101<p>


	6. Cybersquad's Guardian Angel

_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.__  
><em>

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><p>Chapter Six<br>Cybersquad's Guardian Angel

Ever since Max left them on Radopolis, the Cybersquad saw little to nothing at all of the strange cyborg-gargoyle. For the most part, she stayed away from them while they were on their missions to restore order to a Hackerized Cybersite. In fact, Max stayed out of the public eye lest she be spotted by Hacker and either kidnapped or Dematerilaized.

The Cybersquad knew Max would be only too willing to jump in and help them if they sent her an SOS but they were reluctant to do so. Hacker already considered her a big threat to him and his dreams of Cyber-domination - Max being the only other person in Cyberspace capable of permanently stopping him. And Max's mission was to stop him.

The very thought of what Master Pi asked Max to do sent chills down the Cybersquad's spines. They knew Max had to do it and, probably, wanted to do it. If she did it, Master Pi would give her the secret formula to get her body back. But it was still fear on the Cybersquad's part. Fear that Max might not be able to control herself and, therefore, attempt to delete him through the means of force and violence. But they were also afraid Hacker would kidnap her and dump her in the nearest blackhole so his path to dominating Cyberspace would be free and clear of roadblocks and he wouldn't have any more interruptions or delays.

Apparently Hacker was all too aware of Max's mission to delete him and that scared him to no end. On ever site he came upon, he would ask the Cyber-citizens one question.

"Do any of you know where Max Marbles is?" - apparently she had been doing a good job at avoiding him at every turn.

Some of the Cybermates would say: "Nope, haven't seen her." - which would be the case if they haven't, but some of them had and had been sworn to secrecy on her whereabouts.

Others would say: "Max? I thought you dematerialized her. Why would you be looking for her?" - there were still a few Cybermates who hadn't seen her or didn't even know she was still around, but knowledge that Hacker had dematerialized her was now common knowledge. However, Max had appeared on some Cybersites and introduced herself as Zip - only because Hacker was unaware of this pseudonym Slider dubbed her with.

Hacker growled: "I did. But, apparently I missed. She is still alive and roaming Cyberspace without a leash. Now, tell me where she is and I will make it easy on you."

"We don't know where she is, Hacker." said the Cybermates who didn't know Max had survived.

"It's The Hacker!" He would scream. "You should really know this by now!"

Of course, Max wasn't the only one he was looking for. The Cybersquad and Dr. Marbles were threats to him too – the Cybersquad because they always manage to thwart his plans and Marbles because he could be the one to rid Motherboard of her virus which was far from helpful to Hacker's plans. Also, Marbles would also be the one who could repair Max and Max would be there if Hacker kidnapped Marbles and threatened his own existence.1

There was one time when nobody called Max – not even Motherboard – but yet, Max arrived on the scene. That was the day when the Cyber-council was meeting in the tower. All the heads of Cyberspace were meeting there to discuss how they were going to deal with Hacker. Marbles had also taken this opportunity to mention Max was still alive, well, and in a gargoyle body.

"A gargoyle?" Said Lucky, head of R-Fair-City. "How can we trust her? Gargoyles can't be trusted!"

"Believe me. Max is no different now than she was then. She has only one task ahead of her and she means to do it." Marbles said.

The Cyber-heads looked at each other.

"What task is that?" Said the Poddleville Mayor.

"She intends to destroy Hacker and rid Cyberspace of his evil. In return, Master Pi of Shangri-La promised to give her back her cyborg body." Marbles said.

Zeus stood up. "Matthias, you know I respect you and I care a lot about Maxanne, but I do not know whether or not I can condone her for doing something the rest of us would consider evil. What I mean is, if she is a gargoyle now, what's to stop her from killing the rest of us?"

Marbles sighed and rubbed at his eyes. He was afraid this would happen. It had been eons since the cyborg/gargoyle war and _still_ people were being overly racist when it came to gargoyles.

"You all have known Max since her activation sixteen years ago. You know how tough she is and you know what she's like. Most of you have interacted with her. You know what she will and won't do.

"She cares about you . . . all of you. It is because she cares about all of you that she will not go on a murdering rampage. Just because she has a different body does not mean she has a different mindset. Her thought patterns are the same as before she changed. I guarantee she won't hurt anybody."

"How can you guarantee that?" Said Ava, head and sole occupant of Symmetria. "How can you guarantee she won't hurt someone?"

Ava had unofficially been adopted by Marbles because her creator suddenly disappeared without warning. Marbles felt sorry for Ava and took her under his wing for a time. In a sense, Ava was Max's sister and while the two were close, they weren't close enough to actually consider each other family.

When Ava demanded Marbles reconsider what he was guaranteeing, Marbles could do nothing but shake his head at her. Ava should've known better than to accuse Max of being something she wasn't. They weren't close but they knew each other enough to know not to accuse the other of something that wasn't likely to happen.

"How can you guarantee she _will_ hurt someone?" He asked her.

Ava opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut again. She couldn't guarantee Max would turn into a rampaging monster and Marbles couldn't guarantee Max wouldn't. Everyone waited for a response with bated breath. The opinion on Max's new body wasn't good. Yet, the decision of whether or not to get Max on a shorter leash was now up in the air.

"Listen," Marbles said. "I didn't bring this subject up for you to condemn her. I brought it up to warn you about what is going to happen in the future. The only thing I ask is you give Max some leeway."

"But on the day Max deletes Hacker, we will need to be quick to apprehend her lest she decides she likes killing."

"That won't happen." Marbles said.

"How do you know, Matthias?" Zeus asked. Zeus was one of the few people who referred to Marbles by his first name. While it might have been considered disrespectful, for some reason Zeus as the only one who could say it like a friend.

"Because Master Pi promised to be on hand to turn her back into a cyborg. She will be less of a threat to Cyberspace if she is a cyborg." Marbles said. He pointed to a youngish-looking borg bearing untidy, blond hair, a scruffy beard, and sporting sunglasses. "King Dudicus, you've met Max the gargoyle, haven't you?"

"Ch-yah, dude. She is, like, awesome. The little Sly-dude has been watching her."

"Has she shown any volatile tendencies toward you or anyone on the Site?" Marbles asked him.

"Like, no dude. Max was, like, friendly. To everybody, dude. 'Course, when she was on Radopolis, she was, like, going by a different name, dude."

"A different name?" Ollie, head of Solaria, asked. "What other name was she using?"

"Everyone was, like, calling her Zip, dude. The little Sly-dude called her that and everyone was, like, following suit, man. It was awesome."

"She went by another name so it would make it harder for Hacker to find her. He already tried to destroy her once. She was making it difficult for him to destroy her again." Marbles said.

"Perhaps it would have been better for him to have destroyed her. It would have been kinder." Zeus said.

Marbles, who wasn't prone to glaring at a friend, sent a glare in Zeus' direction.

"Sorry, Matthias." Zeus said under his breath.

Further conversation about Max ended right then and there because Hacker, Buzz, and Delete entered the room; the two robots toting a big machine between them.

Hacker gave them all a proposition: "Give me power over all your Cybersites or watch as I freeze your site."

"You're bluffing!" Marbles shouted.

"Try me." Hacker said.

Marbles rolled the sleeve of his jacket up just past his wrist and pushed a button on his locator and Motherboard sent the Cybersquad. But somebody else picked up on the signals, too. While the kids were busy making their way up the tower toward level 18, Max barreled through the glass of the conference room like a giant, white, scaly bullet, and galloped to a stop. She faced the council and Hacker, all of them were staring dumbly at the massive beast. Max's lips curled back over her teeth and a deep growl rumbled out of her throat.

" How . . . _poetic_. The monster coming to the rescue of her creator." Hacker sneered.

"At least he has someone to come to his rescue. What about you?" Max said, advancing on him.

Hacker didn't answer that question. Instead, he held up a remote control. "Watch it! Attack me and I will freeze the first Site this Freezerator1 sees." Hacker said.

"I hope you're fast." Max said.

With one paw, she knocked Hacker's wig off his head and out the window. Then, with a loud hiss and a crack, her mandible separated from her upper jaw and she swallowed him from the shoulders down in her mouth. Then, with a twist of her head, she sent him out the window.

"BOSS!" Buzz and Delete cried.

Max glared at them and they leaped out the window behind him. Max let them go. Instead, she turned back to the council.

"Max! What are you doing here?" Marbles asked. He moved out from behind the table to greet her.

Max lowered her head and gave his chest a gentle thump with her skull top. "I got your SOS, Dad. Naturally, I thought you were in trouble and I came to sort it out."

"But the Freezerator . . ." Began the King of Happily Ever After.

Max studied the large, projector-like machine on the table. She sniffed it, nudged it with a paw, and eyed it.

"It's not a Freezerator."

"How do you know?" Asked Ollie.

"First of all, anything that's supposed to be a freezing unit has to have cooling coils built in. This doesn't have cooling coils. Also, freezing units don't have brake fluid like this has."

"Brake fluid?" Ava said.

Just then, the Cybersquad emerged inside the conference room. Max moved aside so they could see it.

"No need to disable this thing." She told them. "Digit, do you recognize this?"

Digit stared at it. "I've seen it before but I can't remember what. Give me a clue, Max."

"Brake fluid." She said, simply.

"Ha! That's no Freezerator. That's part of the Grimm Wreaker's braking system."

"I knew they were bluffing." Marbles said.

The Cybersquad, Motherboard, Marbles, and Max were all a distraction. But Hacker spent most of his time focusing on catching Max. If he came across Marbles zooming across the expanse of Cyberspace, Hacker would stop and kidnap him. Once, he kidnapped Marbles one time too many.

0

2"Thar she is." Hacker sang, his greedy black eyes on the pirate ship docked at the pier. "My search is over! I've finally found Dr. Marbles."

"Can we see, Boss?" Buzz asked, eagerly bouncing on his heels at his master's side.

"Can we look?" Delete asked, equally as eager.

"Be my guest." Hacker said, stepping aside.

He frowned as his two bumbling henchmen began sissy-slapping each other for a turn at the periscope.

"We've got a problem, boss! Marbles is with . . . Ivanka the Invincible!" Buzz said.

"Of course he's with Ivanka!" Hacker snapped. "It's her pirate ship, you duncebucket!"

"But, boss. Ivanka is a ghost. And you're afraid of ghosts." Delete pointed out.

"Yes, sad but true." Hacker stammered. "However, I see this as an opportunity to eliminate Dr. Marbles - the one person who can cure Motherboard and stop me from taking over Cyberspace."

"But what about Max? Isn't she capable of stopping you from taking over Cyberspace, too?" Delete asked.

"Oh believe me, once I get my hands on that mangled mutt I'll make sure she won't be able to even lift a finger to stop me." Hacker said.

"And what about Ivanka?" Buzz asked.

"Yeah. How do you get rid of a ghost?" Delete said.

"One step at a time, my shallow-minded stooges, and even ghost problems get solved." Hacker said.

1

Aboard Ivanka's pirate ship, Ivanka the Invincible was listening to the excitable Dr. Marbles, who was explaining everything he had done so far. Everything, being that he managed to create an exact - but much smaller - replica of Motherboard's terminal.

Ivanka was a close friend to Marbles and Motherboard. So when Marbles called her up and asked her if he could borrow her ship to do some research on a material that only exists on Ivanka's home site, Ivanka was all too willing to help him out.

It had taken the good doctor months to construct the terminal, copy a strain of the virus inside Motherboard, and locate the material known as Magmelux before he was ready to do the testing. And Ivanka was a willing audience member who hovered behind her friend while he gave his explanations.

"This circuitboard is an exact replica of the one inside Motherboard." Marbles said, tapping the terminal fondly. "And this is a memory chip containing the virus Hacker infected her with. If my calculations are correct, all we have to do is collect enough Magmelux to restore Motherboard to full operating status."

Marbles hefted a chunk of Magmelux that was bigger than both of his hands and stuffed it in a small box located beneath the terminal. Then, shutting the box's door with a snap, Marbles watched as the Magmelux rendered the virus in the memory chip obsolete and a holographic image of Motherboard appeared on the screen above the terminal.

Marbles jumped for joy. "It worked! The Magmelux removed the virus from the chip!" He said.

"Well, shiver me scroll bar. You've finally found something that will remove the virus from Motherboard. Thanks to you, Doctor." Ivanka said, in her heavy pirate tongue.

Marbles smiled as Ivanka circled around him; her transparent body made the ship's interior shimmer behind her.

"And thanks to you, too, Ivanka. For keeping me safe from Hacker after all this time until I could find a cure." Marbles said.

"It was worth the wait, matey. Me will to thwart Hacker remains strong." Ivanka said.

"Come. We'll go to Mount Sevarius and retrieve enough Magmelux to cure Motherboard's virus." Marbles said with excitement.

"Aye. We will at that, Matey. But first -" Ivanka floated over to the record player located between two portholes. She popped the needle onto the record and a pirate-esk jingle sounded from it's twin speakers. "A wee celebration."

"Why, I didn't know you jigged." Marbles said, joining his ghostly friend out on the floor.

The two jigged a little, sharing steps and stomps and twirls when, suddenly and without warning, Ivanka was sucked out of the pirate ship by a hose that suddenly appeared in one of the opened portholes.

"IVANKA!" Marbles cried, running to peer out of the unobstructed porthole.

0

Ivanka was deposited, unceremoniously, into a glass jar which was stoppered at the top by a gigantic, rubber cork. She scowled at the two robots who leered back at her.

"Let me out of here you slob-sided landlubbers!" Ivanka screamed, banging the glass with her ghostly fists.

"Save your breath, Ivanka. A heh heh! This jar is ghost proof." Buzz told her.

"Even you can't get out." Delete put in. He stuck out his tongue for good measure which further infuriated the pirate ghost.

1

"Hacker!" Marbles gasped when he recognized the giant Cyber-craft hovering over the pirate ship.

"Did someone call my name?" Hacker asked sarcastically, startling Marbles nearly out of his boots.

"How did you find me?"

"Perseverance and persistence, my dear hallmarks of a genius."

"A corrupted one at that. Motherboard banished you once, she can do it again."

Hacker laughed. "I seriously doubt that. When you created me, you gave me brainpower equal to yours." He tapped Marbles' light bulb with a green finger, arrogantly.

"And you could have used your intelligence for the good of Cyberspace instead of for personal greed." Marbles pointed out.

"Picky picky. The Hacker wants only what the Hacker deserves: complete control of Cyberspace. Is that asking for too much?"

"Some day I'll have have you reformatted and -" Marbles began but Hacker interrupted him.

"Oh no you won't. In fact, I heard your entire conversation about Magmelux and, quite frankly, I'm very impressed." Hacker pushed past Marbles and wrenched the Magmelux from it's box. "If Magmelux can erase my virus from Motherboard's memory, I'm sure it can erase anything. Including Motherboard."

His greedy eyes spotted a map on a nearby workbench and saw an X scrawled over a volcano marked Mount Sevarius.

"Mount Sevarius here I come!" He announced, snatching the map up into his fist. He stashed the Magmelux and map into his pocket. Then wandered back to Marbles and hefted his creator up into the air by the front of his jacket. "By the way, you won't be coming with me. I have other plans for you."

"What are you going to do with me?" Marbles asked. His face and voice gave no hint of any fear what so ever of his monstrosity.

"I'm going to use you to draw your precious daughter out. I can't have her ruining my plans for Cyber-domination either." Hacker said.

"Max wouldn't be so stupid to come for me." Marbles said. "Remember, she was trained as a warrior of Shangri La. She's a smart girl."

"Maybe. Then again, maybe she isn't so smart. She seems to care a lot about you - for whatever reason that is, I'll never understand." Hacker said, thoughtfully. "Either way, she'll come to me. Or, you can do me a favor and tell me where she is."

"I don't owe you any favors and I can't tell you where she is, Hacker." Marbles spat. "Nobody knows where she is and nobody can find her if she doesn't want to be found."

"Oh, I'll find her alright. And when I do, I'll make her wish you never created her. I'll make her life so miserable, she'll beg for me to delete her."

"She already wishes I had never created her after everything you did to made her a social reject. She can't go anywhere without people recoiling from her. Without people despising her for what she is now."

"Fine. I reiterate. I'll make her life more miserable than it already is. You say I have made her a social reject. Let's see how much of a social reject she'll be after I'm through with her. All that business with Magnetite and the electrocutions was just the beginning. I was just getting warmed up."

From the look in Hacker's eye, Marbles knew he wasn't kidding.

* * *

><p>1Extract from Cyberchase Episode "Below Zero"<p>

2The following few chapters was taken from the episode "Step by step" 605


	7. To Corsairio

_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.  
><em>

* * *

><p>Chapter Seven<br>To Corsairio

Digit LeBoid was snoozing in a hammock when his sleep was interrupted by Motherboard's tone of alarm. "Digit!"

"WAHH! OOF!" Digit sprang out of the hammock, collided with the rafters, and face-planted on the tiled floor in front of Motherboard's terminal.

"Hacker has Dr. Marbles. Tracking device activated."

"Wuh-oh." Digit said. His propellers whirling as he hovered in front of Motherboard's screen. "Don't tell me Hacker knows about the Magmelux too!"

"Hurry, Didge. Go to Cybersite Corsairio. Picaroon Lagoon. I'll contact the Cybersquad." Motherboard said.

Digit, the ever-loyal Cyboid, saluted his leader and headed off for Corsairio. There, he sat upon the bird's nest with a spyglass, watching and waiting for his friends.

"Where are those Earthlies?" He said after a half-hour of waiting. Just when he was getting ready to call Motherboard, a ball of pink light swirled around him and unceremoniously dumped the kids onto the ship's deck.

"About time you got here!" Digit said, fluttering to the deck.

"Sorry, Didge. There was a glitch in Motherboard's portal." Inez said.

"Yeah." Matt agreed. "We got sent to Macaroon Lagoon by mistake."

"I hate when that happens." Digit said, exasperated.

"Any idea where Hacker took Dr. Marbles?" Jackie asked.

Digit opened his chest hatch and pulled out a ragged old map. "Yeah. He's on Skull Island which is way down here -" He pointed to a small sketch of a skull at the bottom of the map. "- and the Magmelux which Dr. Marbles was researching to cure Motherboard's virus is up here, at Mount Sevarius -" he pointed to a drawing of a volcano at the top of the map diagonally from Skull Island.

"Come on. We'll rescue Dr. Marbles." Inez said.

"We also have to get the Magmelux before Hacker does. It's powerful stuff." Digit said. "I can't believe I'm saying this but let's split up. I'll go to the volcano and collect the Magmelux. You guys go find Dr. Marbles."

"Wait a second. Where's Ivanka?" Jackie asked.

"She's gone too. I've looked everywhere." Digit said.

"We'll find her, Didge. Don't worry." Jackie said, patting his wing.

"I know." Digit said, crestfallen.

"You bet we will. But we'd best find my dad too, while we're at it."

The Cybersquad looked up just in time to see Max coming toward them. They dove out of the way as Max landed on the deck and ran a short distance before coming to a stop.

"Max! What the heck are you doing here?" Digit said.

Max's tongue licked the tip of his beak. "I'm glad to see you too, Didge. You don't have to freak out. I got the same SOS you did. I thought I would come check it out is all."

"Don't you know he's looking for you and you do realize this could be his trap just to catch you?" Digit pointed out.

"Yeah, I heard he's been looking for me but he won't catch me. I've been traveling around as Zip, not as Max. The great thing is, he doesn't know I haven't been using my real name so it's been driving him nuts that nobody's seen me." Max pointed out. "It's pretty hilarious watching him throw a temper tantrum. Especially with those ridiculously tiny legs of his."

The kids chuckled as they imagined Hacker throwing a temper tantrum just as Max described.

"Anyway. Digit, if you're going after Magmelux, you'll need this." With her tail, Max unlooped a sack from her shoulder and wing-ridge and passed it to the Cyboid. "It's a space-time bag. It doesn't matter what you put into it or how much, it still weighs the same. Don't ask me what it's made from because I don't even know. Master Pi's warriors developed it some time ago and we used to carry it around with us everywhere. You can use it if you want."

"Gee, thanks Max." Digit said, stashing the sack in his chest hatch. "It'll help."

She licked him again. "Good. Now, you might want to get going. There's no telling when you -know-who is going to lose interest watching Dad and will head for Mount Sevarius. Get as much Magmelux as you can. Also, that volcano is still active. It only erupts every few eons and this happens to be the eon it's bound to erupt. You might want to wear an environmental suit to protect yourself from the fumes."

"Good idea, Max. I've got one stored away in my chest hatch. I'll put it on when I get there." Digit said. "Here's the map to Skull Island and be careful." Jackie took the map.

They watched him take off. Then, Max lowered herself onto her front legs. "Get on." She told them.

The kids pulled themselves up onto her back and shoulders, just behind the twin wing joints, and noticed that her scars also stretched over the left wing joint and over her rump and saddle; another reminder of the ordeal she went through while in Hacker's hands. Down her back was a ridge of raised bone which provided enough space for the kids to sit.

"So Max, what's the plan?" Matt asked.

"Simple. We find Dad while Digit locates the Magmelux. Then we find Ivanka." Max said.

"Are we going to fly there?" Inez asked, she didn't like heights much and Max had an impressive set of wings which were now folded above her mismatched elbows.

"Nope. We're going to run. I don't fly while I have passengers - too dangerous. I have to do a roll in order to land." She told them. "Now, where's the first landmark."

"Okay, it looks like we have to go south west from Picaroon Lagoon to Skull Island. Which means we may have to go through this stream." Jackie said. She pointed to the stream onto which Ivanka's ship was anchored. "Just go through here. Um, just out of curiosity, do gargoyles swim?"

"Doggy-paddle. That's about it." Max answered. She walked to the edge of the boat and leaped into the water; her wings unfurling to break their fall.

0

"Why don't you just dump him in a black hole, Boss?" Buzz said within full hearing of Dr. Marbles and Ivanka who were now prisoners aboard the bridge of the Grimm Wreaker.

Delete laughed maniacally. "Or slip him in the Forever Gone machine?"

"Not just yet. I've rigged an experiment of my own to see what Magmelux can really do." Hacker said with a sinister grin.

He slipped the chunk of Magmelux he had taken from the Doc into a compartment next to a computer terminal of his own devising. Then, by pulling the lever down, Hacker made the bridge across to Skull Island disappear.

Buzz laughed. "Good one, Boss."

"Yeah. It's going to be bye-bye Motherboard." Delete agreed.

Everyone but Ivanka and Marbles laughed at their own cruel joke.

"You're destined to fail, Hacker. No matter how clever you think you are, your system syntax will never allow you to triumph." Marbles said, crossing his arms over his narrow chest.

Hacker chuckled at Marbles use of computer terminology. "You don't really expect me to believe that do you? When you made me, you created perfection? To prove it, I'm going to keep you around long enough to witness my triumph over Motherboard."

"You will never triumph so long as Max and I are around." Marbles said.

"Don't I know it." Hacker said. "Which is precisely why I've been looking for her this long. But, now that I have you, she will come to me."

"No she will not, Hacker." Marbles said. "Max is too smart for you. When I created her, I downloaded the same amount of brainpower as I gave you. But the biggest difference between you and her is she uses her intelligence for good and not for self-gain. You could learn a great deal from your older sister if you chose too."

At the mention of his relationship with Max, Hacker hefted Marbles up by the front of his shirt again. "Don't you ever refer to her as my older sister again. Do you hear me? She is nothing more than a stinky, winged reptile with the brain of an intelligent killing machine. You would do well to remember that."

"And you would do well to remember that it is she, the stinky, winged reptile, who will be the end of you, Hacker. Your fate had long since been decided since you betrayed Motherboard, kidnapped, tortured, and mutated my daughter, and tried to destroy her. You've made bad decisions since you came online and those bad decisions will be your downfall." Marbles said.

Hacker set Marbles down on a somewhat loose tile. "We'll see about that. Once I get rid of Max, nobody will stand in my way. Nobody! Not even those Earth brats you and Motherboard think so highly of." He wandered back to his station and pressed a button. The tile beneath Marbles opened, dropping the unfortunate inventor borg into a bowl-shaped cutout on Skull Island.

"Tata, Dr. Marbles." Hacker said over a loud speaker. "First I'm going to Mount Sevarius to collect all your precious Magmelux. Then, I'm coming back for you." With that, the Grimm Wreaker rocketed off toward Mount Sevarius.

1

Meanwhile, the kids and Max had already arrived at the spot where the bridge to Skull Island had been only moments before. Max let loose a thunderous growl from the cover of the dense vegetation where she had hidden herself lest Hacker see her.

"That idget doesn't how to respect his elders. The least I would've done was given him a cushion to land on." She grumbled.

The kids ignored this.

"Doctor Marbles! Can you hear me? It's us . . . the Earthlies." Jackie called across the expanse of the bridgeless lake.

"I hear you. But I cannot see you." Marbles called back.

"I'll swim across and get you out." Matt called.

"I wouldn't suggest swimming in that lake." Max said, shrugging out of the fern bed. Her robotic eye trained on something in the water.

"Why not?" Matt asked, already stripping off his sweater. "Do you see something?"

"Yes." Max said, not looking at him.

"I see something too." Jackie said.

Jackie hefted a rock and threw it into the water. Suddenly, the water writhed with life; electrical snapping cut through the air. Matt jumped back.

"Whoa! What are those things?"

For an answer, Max hefted a pole in her mouth and dipped it into the lake. Then, with a flick of her powerful neck, she landed a long eel onto the beach which wiggled and snapped and convulsed.

"Whoa! Electric cyber-eels. Thanks guys. I would've been toast." Matt said.

Max flipped the eel back into the lake with another flick of her neck. "See why I suggested not swimming in this lake? I can't even swim in it. If I get electrocuted anymore, chances are I won't be around anymore to finish the task Master Pi gave me."

"I see what you mean." Inez said. She pulled out her Sqwackpad. "Didge. It's me, Inez. We've found Dr. Marbles." She said to the Sqwack.

"That's good." Digit said.

"But the whole island is surrounded by electric cyber-eels and we can't get to it." Inez put in.

"That's bad." Digit said after a beat. "Why doesn't Max fly over there and get him?"

Max snatched the Sqwack out of Inez's hand to better speak with her Cyboid friend. "Are you kidding me? I can't get a good enough run on this sand to even get across there." She looked around. "I could jump across the stands where the bridge was, but there isn't enough room for me to land on all fours and I can't stand on my hind legs. And if my tail ends up in the water, it'll either be chewed on or used as a conductor and I can't get electrocuted again."

"Okay, well you guys are going to have to figure it out without me. We have to get the Magmelux before Hacker does. You stay close to Max. She's a smart kid and she'll protect you." Digit said.

"One more thing, Hacker's on his way to the volcano." Inez told him.

"I'm almost there." Digit said.

After Inez disconnected from Digit, the four of them stared out across the eel-infested lake. Max curled a lip scornfully at the eels.

"Well, how are we going to do it?" She asked.

"We'll think of something." Inez told her.

"Yeah." Matt put in. "Are you sure you can't fly us across there?"

"Like I said, I can't get a good enough run on this sand to get over there. I need to run a good ten strides in a straight line and on a smooth, stable surface before I can get anywhere. Look around. Do you see anything that could equal the distance of ten strides in a straight line on a smooth, stable surface?" Max asked.

The kids looked around. "No." Inez said.

"Wait. Ten strides for us or ten strides for you?" Jackie asked.

"Ten strides for me. I've got a longer body and legs than you."

Matt faced the forest. "I don't see any straight lines. Unless you can come in at an angle." He suggested.

"Too many trees. I have to be able to open my wings and get them pumping by the sixth stride. See, there's too many factors here playing against me. The beach is too narrow and has sand instead of grass, or good dirt, or gravel and there are too many trees in the way so I can't unfurl my wings or run in a straight line. Also to answer your question, Matt, I shouldn't fly over there with you guys on board. It's just too dangerous. Maybe if I had an apparatus that would hold the four of you on, I would be willing to risk it. But we don't have anything like that so I'm not willing to risk dumping you three into a lake of electric eels." Max said.

The kids cringed at her words - the visualization of being surrounded by electric cyber-eels probably helped too.

"Okay so flying is out of the question. Anyway, Dr. Marbles is trapped on an island. The bridge is gone. Electric cyber-eels in the water. How are we going to rescue Dr. Marbles? Cybersquad, we have a problem."


	8. Magmelux

_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.  
><em>

* * *

><p>Chapter Eight<br>Magmelux

Digit was tired. He had worked his propeller for far longer than he was used to doing. He had flown across Cyberspace before using his propeller, but Cyberspace was cool. Cybersite Corsairio was warm.

It took him twenty minutes to get to Mount Sevarius and by that time, he was hot and panting and nearly worn out by the trip. But the volcano was even warmer despite the darkness inside. Max had been right about one thing. The volcano was getting ready to blow.

Digit landed on the lip of the volcano and looked around; pleased with himself that he managed to get here before Hacker and that there was still time to get the Magmelux out before Hacker got there. A rumble caused by the tremors from the volcano knocked Digit off the lip. He plummeted down a great distance and landed on his feet.

Digit touched the bobble on his hat and a light appeared, illuminating the area around him.

"Boy is it hot down here." He said, wiping his brow. Then, he whooped with excitement when he saw several piles of Magmelux close by, opened his chest hatch, pulled out the sack Max lent him, and got to work filling it; pleased that Max had been right about another thing, the bag weighed nearly nothing at all even with the rocks being thrown inside.

0

Meanwhile, Max and the Cybersquad were still staring across the lake where the bridge had been only moments before. Each one was trying to figure out a way across without actually touching the water. And Max was wishing she could be more useful at this point in time.

She let out a snort coupled with a sigh. "Well, how're we going to do it? We've got to think of something because I am not going to leave Dad stuck in a stone skull."

"What we need is a plan." Jackie said.

"What we need is a bridge." Matt corrected.

"That's it! Rebuild the bridge! That's our plan!" Inez said.

"Huh? How?" Jackie asked. "Only the pilings are left. Inez, we don't have a plan. We have a problem. And we don't have a clue how to solve it.

"Yeah, how are you going to build a bridge? Because I'm not cutting down any trees. Especially not these trees. Their wood won't hold my weight." Max said.

"We won't need to cut down any trees, Max. Maybe it's like what me abuela always says: 'take your big problems one step at a time and then they won't seem so big'." Inez said.

"Your abuela?" Max asked.

"My grandmother." Inez answered.

"She sounds like a wise old lady." Max commented. "Because that's precisely what we have to do. Solve our problems step by step."

"Okay, one step at a time. So first, we need something to build a bridge with." Jackie said.

"Guys, over here!" Matt said. He was standing by an enormous sign staked into the ground. The sign featured a skull and crossed swords advertising Skull Island. "We can make the bridge out of this sign."

"It's a little too small." Max pointed out.

"And it's way too short to reach all the way across." Jackie added.

"Look closer. The sign is made of separate boards. If we take it apart, we'll be able to lay them end to end and we might be able to make it all the way across."

"Alright! Boards for the bridge! Let's build it!" Jackie said.

Max climbed up one of the poles to the top of the sign. "You guys build while I take this thing apart." She said, thrusting her prosthetic arm against the top board.

"Wait. What if there aren't enough boards? Let's start by seeing how many boards make it to the first piling. Then we'll estimate how many it takes to get to the island." Inez said.

"Sounds good enough to me. I don't like this whole estimate business but it'll have to do." Max said. Perching on top the pole, she watched as Matt and Jackie tore off the bottom board and laid it on the sand near the shore of the lake.

"Oh man! It's too short. Now what are we going to do?" Jackie asked.

1

On board the Grimm Wreaker, Hacker was alertly looking out for Mount Sevarius and trying to ignore Ivanka the Invincible's dire threats.

"When I get out of here, Hacker, I'm going to make ye walk the PLANK!"

"Oh, Ivanka. I think you'll find you're the one who will be 'walking the plank'. Over a black hole." Hacker commented crudely. He laughed, equally as crudely. Then, Buzz interrupted him while he was about to carry on with his rant.

"Boss! I can see the volcano!"

0

In the meantime, Matt had already dismantled another board from the sign, dragged it over to the first board, and hooked the two together.

"Since one board couldn't reach the piling, two of them should. They hook together, see?" He said.

"Cool, let's try it." Jackie said.

The three kids hauled the two boards to the pilings and dropped them on the first one. Together, the two boards made it just two feet over the piling.

"Touch down!" Matt said, triumphantly.

"It's so far. We're going to need a lot more boards just to make it across. How many more do we have?" Inez said.

"There's seven boards here." Max announced. "Plus the two you already used is nine."

"Check it out, they're all the same length." Jackie said.

"Alright. Nine boards, two stretch across one piling. How many pilings do we have?" Matt asked.

"I'll find out." Inez said. She wandered to the water's edge and stared across the lake. "Seven! There are seven pilings."

"Okay. We know it takes a little more than one board to make it to reach a pilings. And there are seven pilings. How many boards do we need?" Matt asked.

Jackie sat down and drew her thoughts out onto a piece of paper. Matt and Inez went to see what she was doing and Max jumped down from her perch to see it too.

"Okay, here's the distance between the shore and the island." Jackie said, showing them the picture she drew.

"And we know there are seven pilings." Matt said, counting the pilings on Jackie's drawing.

"And we know it takes more than one board to get to the first piling." Inez said.

Jackie drew a crude sketch of the board on her paper. "It would help if we knew how long the boards are."

"That's it! One step at a time!" Matt said. "Let's figure out the length of one board. Then we can use that to figure out the length of all of them together. Too bad we don't have a ruler."

"Use your Sqwackpads to measure with! The Sqwacks are one cyber-foot long! I know because I designed them myself!" Marbles called.

Max stared off in the direction of his voice. "Boy is he good. I didn't know he had that good of hearing."

"Thanks, Dr. Marbles!" Matt called back. "We're on it."

Max rammed her prosthetic hand against the last bottom board; knocking it off its iron spikes. Matt dragged it away from the sign's posts and dropped it. That was when he noticed the back of the board had three squares, each colored in a shade of green.

"This might be easier than we thought." He said. "Check this out."

Max knocked down two more boards with a couple of thunks with her fist.

"These do, too." Inez said.

"Okay. So if we can figure out the length of one square, we can figure out the length of the rest of the board." Matt said.

"Let's try it." Max said.

Jackie presented them with her Sqwackpad. "Okay, guys. Let's start measuring."

"Inez! It's me! I've got some of the Magmelux out, but the Hacker's here. So I can't get any more. Did you guys rescue the doc yet?"

Inez fished out her Sqwackpad and stared down at the anxious face of Digit on the screen. "Not yet. We've got a _little _problem, but we're working on it."

"We'll I've got a _big_ problem, okay? Not only is the Hacker here, but this whole volcano is about to blow. So do me a favor . . . hurry!" Digit said.

"Hang in there, Didge." Inez said, disconnecting from him.

"Okay, each square is two cyber-feet long." Jackie said near the stack of boards they set up.

"And since there are three squares, the boards are six cyber-feet long." Inez said, kneeling by the board.

"And we have nine boards to work with." Jackie said.

"And nine times six is . . . fifty-four cyber-feet long. That means we have fifty-four cyber-feet of board to make a bridge." Matt said. He and Jackie high-fived.

"But guys, what if fifty-four cyber-feet isn't enough?" Inez said. "We still need to figure out how far it is across the water."

Inez's question effectively stumped them.


	9. One Step at a Time

_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.  
><em>

* * *

><p>Chapter Nine<br>One Step at a Time

"Keep thinking, guys. We're making progress. I just know we are." Jackie said.

Everyone was in their thinking phase, and each person was doing their own thing while they thought. Matt played with his yo-yo, Inez stood on her head, Jackie paced, and Max perched on the top of a post and stared out across the lake like she was drawing up a picture in her head – which very well could be.

"We didn't think we could measure how long our boards are, did we?" Jackie asked, pausing a moment in her pacing.

"No. But -" Inez began but Jackie kept going.

"But we solved that part of the problem. Didn't we?"

"Yes. But -" Matt began but Jackie kept going.

"Then we'll solve this part too."

The kids were quiet a moment. Then Max let out a low growl.

"Well, we'd better figure it out fast. If you-know-who manages to get all the Magmelux he can get before Mount Sevarius erupts into a fiery inferno, he'll be back to fetch Dad. That's the last thing I – or anybody else – wants."

"We'll figure it out, Max. Inez said. "Just keep thinking."

"I've got it! All we have to do is measure how long it if across the water!" Matt said.

"How?" The girls asked. Max turned her head toward him, a feline ear tilted in the direction of Skull Island.

"The pilings! Check 'em out. The spaces between them looks about the same." Matt said.

"You're right." Jackie said. "So, if we know how far it is to the first piling -"

"We can figure out the total distance across by multiplying." Inez finished. "But what are we going to measure with?"

"We've got our ruler right here." Matt said, pointing to the boards. "We know each square is two cyber-feet long. All we have to do is count the squares."

"I'll do it." Inez volunteered. She ran to the shore and counted the squares, coming up with an answer of four squares (eight cyber-feet total).

"Alright!" Matt celebrated.

"We know we have seven pilings and eight feet between each piling. So, the total distance between us and Skull Island is -" Inez began.

Max interrupted while she was doing her multiplication. "Fifty-six cyber-feet."

"Problem solved!" Inez celebrated, high-fiving Matt.

Jackie checked her drawing and gasped. "Wait a second. Problem _not_ solved. I think we counted wrong!"

Max hopped down; landing squarely on all fours with a thud. "What do you mean you counted wrong? How can fifty-six cyber-feet be wrong?"

Jackie turned her drawing back to them. "Here's the problem. We counted the _pilings_, but we didn't count the spaces _between_ the pilings. See?"

Max thunked her forehead with her prosthetic paw. "Crap! I thought that was too easy!"

"Then why didn't you say anything?" Matt asked.

"Because, sometimes too easy is good. Sometimes not so good. This is one of those not-so-good moments." Max answered.

"So there are eight spaces and each space is eight cyber-feet across. So eight times eight is -" Inez began.

Max already had the answer in her head. "Sixty-four cyber-feet."

"So our bridge has to be sixty-four cyber-feet long." Matt said.

"Oh now. We only have fifty-four cyber-feet of board. We're ten cyber-feet short! Gosh, I thought we finally had the riddle solved." Inez said.

"We're close guys. I know we can do it." Matt said, squeezing both girls' shoulders. Then, he spotted the two cardboard pirates by a treasure chest. "Max, can you pull those up for me?"

"You got it, Matt." Max said. She sauntered over to the pirates and hauled them out of the sand. Then, clenching them in her teeth, she dragged them over to Matt and dropped them into the sand. "There. What are you planning on doing with them?"

"We'll see if this works the same way as the boards. If these two pirates are long enough, they should help us get across." Matt said. He flipped them over revealing a post stapled to each pirate. "Check it out. They're narrower than the others but they have the same tongue and groove ends."

"Alright." The girls said.

Inez lined one of the boards up next to the post. "It's not quite as long as the others, but we only need ten more cyber-feet."

"If we add these two to the boards, we should have enough to reach the other shore." Jackie said.

"Any progress yet?" Dr. Marbles called.

"Almost, Dad." Max called back. "We'll be there in a jiffy."

"Keep your fingers crossed!" Jackie added.

"Finger-crossing program installed." Dr. Marbles called back.

Max grinned. "I don't doubt they are."

With that, the three kids walked across the boards they already had lined up; carrying the left-over boards and clicking them into place as they went. Meanwhile, Max waited until they got across before she trotted over the make-shift bridge – she didn't want to stress the bridge out and collapse into a lakeful of electric cyber-eels.

Max looked up at the top of the skull-shaped mountain. "Does anybody have a rope?" She asked.

Jackie found a vine, rolled it up into a coil, and tossed it around Max's tail.

"What are you planning to do?" Matt asked.

"I'm going to climb up there, fetch Dad, tie him to me – so he doesn't fall off while I climb back up – and climb back out. You three wait here. Thanks for your help, by the way." Max said.

She scrambled up the rocky surface of the mountain; her thick bone and metal claws digging into the rock and provided her with enough room to push and pull herself up. Before long, she disappeared from sight, dropping into the chasm next to her father. The Cybersquad could hear Dr. Marbles speaking.

"Max! What are you doing here?"

"I'm glad to see you too, Dad."

"You-know-who was going to use me to lure you to him. I told him you wouldn't come but here you are! Why?"

"Relax, Dad. He made a mistake by putting you in this hole and leaving you unattended. I figured he would since he always does. If he really wanted to catch me, he should've kept an eye on you."

That last comment shut him up.

"Now, how do you want to get out of this hole? You want me to tie you to me or carry you in my teeth. I can do either one, it doesn't matter to me." Max said.

"I'd would prefer neither." Dr. Marbles said. He climbed up onto her neck and twirled his fingers in her mane.

"Seatbelt activated?" Max asked.

"Seatbelt activated." He confirmed.

Max leaped onto the wall and slithered up its surface with surprising speed and accuracy. The Doc lost his grip once and started falling before Max caught him around the middle with her teeth. She carefully adjusted her jaws so her fangs didn't puncture him and carried him the rest of the way up the hole, over the rim, and down the hillside.

"It would've been easier if you had tied yourself to me." Max said as he crawled back onto her neck and rewove his fingers through her mane.

"Maybe to you but not to me, Max." Marbles said.

"Whatever." Max growled. She turned her eyes toward the kids. "It'll be faster if we run from here to Mount Sevarius. We still have to find Ivanka and fetch Digit."

"Ivanka has been captured by you-know-who." Marbles said. "He's keeping her in a ghost-proof bottle aboard the Grimm Wreaker."

Max held still as the kids climbed up onto her back and sat between the ridges.

"Let's go get that ghost!" Jackie said.

Max's powerful legs pumped against the ground as she ran all the way to Mount Sevarius.


	10. PirateSpeech

_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.__  
><em>

* * *

><p>Chapter Ten<br>Pirate-Speech

Max ran like the devil himself was chasing her. For all her size, she was graceful; her front legs came forward – right just before left – as her body softly arched behind them. Her tail lashed the ground from side to side and the barb left marks in the sandy surface. With each pace, Max let out a breath in the form of a growl and her lips opened over sharp fangs. Her mismatched eyes focused in concentration and both cat-like ears flattened back over her skull.1

Her body was streamline, perfectly built for running. The air whistled through her mane and horns, down her ridged back, across her wings, and down her haunches. And her wings were long enough and broad enough to carry her light body – by gargoyle standards – high into the air.

Marbles bent over her head as though he was trying to help her speed up and the kids held on tightly to the ridge in front of them. Max's wings were folded ever-so-slightly as a sort of barrier to keep them on board. Even Marbles was somewhat protected from falling off by the wing-ridge but he twisted his fingers through her mane and held on tight to the sides of her neck with his knees and heels.

The fact everyone was holding on tightly didn't seem to bother Max much. In fact, it didn't even hinder her. She kept right on running. And she didn't stop until they reached Mount Sevarius. Then, at the foothills of the active volcano, Max slowed to a walk, then stopped and got down on all fours to let her passengers off. Then, shaking herself off, she looked up at the smoking volcano.

"Looks like Mount Sevarius if going to blow very soon." She said.

"Yes." Marbles said, placing a hand on her head, just below the leonine ear pricked in the direction of the smoke. "And when it does, the Magmelux will disappear."

"Hopefully Digit got as much out of there as he could find." Jackie said.

"Come on. We have to get Ivanka." Matt said, running ahead.

Max rose on all fours and trotted ahead of them. "I'll get Ivanka's jar, you guys look for high ground." She said, slithering up the volcano wall.

"We had best do what she says." Marbles told the Cybersquad. "Max knows what she's talking about. Come on. My cybercoop is just up on that rise."

The kids turned and followed Dr. Marbles up a large, grassy hill. From their vantage point, they saw Max still scaling up the wall. Her claws digging into the rocky face, wings held wide and tail wagging to keep balance on the perilous distance from the base of the mountain. Max's robotic eye pointed out the safest holds up so she wouldn't get trapped on the side of the mountain and not be able to get up to the lip of the volcano. Her body was oddly flexible and reptile-like as she kept close to the rocks; reaching only a couple feet at a time to grab for the next move.

Before long, Max made it up to the volcano's mouth. She squatted, unfurled her wings, and jumped.

Inez grabbed Marbles' elbow. "Will she be alright going into the volcano like that?"

"A gargoyle's respiratory system has the ability to filter out toxins from the air they breathe. As long as she isn't caught in a cloud of toxic gases, Max will be fine."

And Max was fine. Her wing membrane ballooned above her as she parachuted down into the volcano. She fell down, down, down, until her bone and metal claws came in contact with the hull of a cyber-craft. She stretched out her wings, folded them over her shoulders, and began her descent into the great big ship known as the Grimm Wreaker. She activated the magnets in her left paws and scuttled across the hull and slipped into the opening in the ship.

Ivanka's bottle was situated in the very middle of the bridge. Digit was there, too; his body wrapped around the giant, purple cork in an attempt to rip it out with little success.

"Max, ye landlubber! It's good ta see ya, cully." Ivanka said, grinning at the gargoyle through the ghost-proof jar.

Max grinned back at the cyber-ghost. "Good to see ya too, Ivanka." She said, dropping into the pirate-speech while she approached the bottle.

Aside from a handful of other cyborgs, Ivanka was – by no means – disturbed by Max's change in appearance. Ghosts had nothing to fear anyway.

"Let's say we get you out of that bottle, eh?" Max said. "Out of the way, Didge. Let me have a go."

"Be my guest." Digit said.

He moved aside as Max tipped the bottle on its side and wrapped her body around it. Her sharp scales scratched the glass as she fit her form around the bottle's angles. Then, she licked the mouth of the bottle – making sure her saliva reached deep into the opening – before gripping the cork hard in her teeth and pulling. She jerked around with the cork; twisting her head, readjusting her mouth, and twisting some more. Then, with a pop, the cork came free and Ivanka slipped out of her prison.

"Arr, thank'ee, cully. I'll never forget yor kindness." Ivanka said.

"Arr, anytime, Captain." Max said. "But we need to get moving if we want to get out of here before the volcano erupts."

"I'll see you later then, cully." Ivanka said, saluting the gargoyle and floating off.

Max turned to walk out, then stopped and looked back at her cyboid friend. "Hey Didge. You coming?"

"Hang on a minute. There's something I want to do first." Digit said.

He located Hacker's chair, opened a hatch, and ripped out a battery pack. Then, he perched on Max's neck while she darted from the Grimm Wreaker and clambered up to the top of the ship. She was about to scale the wall when a thought occurred to her and she made her way to the rockets and called down.

"Ahoy there, ye landlubber!"

Hacker, dressed in an environmental suit, looked up and saw Max standing above him. He glared at her and she grinned, impudently, at him.

"Max! I knew you would show up! But you're too late. I don't have your precious father with me." Hacker said.

"Yeah, I know. We already freed him." Max said. Still grinning, she nodded.

"You didn't come for Ivanka the Invincible, did you?" Hacker asked. "She's in a bottle that proofed against ghosts and everything else."

"Actually, I already set her free too. You might want to sue the producer of that bottle. I got it open with spit and teeth." Max said, her grin widening over her fangs.

Hacker couldn't figure out why she was smiling like that. Then, he remembered the Magmelux. "You're still too late. Me and the boys are going to dig up all these Magmelux."

"Actually, you're wrong there. The volcano will be exploding here in couple of minutes. You might want to get out of here and fast." Max said. "Just thought I would let you know."

A rumble and a quake confirmed Max's words. The volcanic floor split and sparks blew out. Hacker knew Max wasn't joking. She never joked about stuff like this.

"Get those wagons in the Wreaker!" Hacker ordered.

"But Boss, we're not done yet!" Delete protested.

"NOW!" Hacker screamed. He turned back to Max and shook his fist at her. "I warn you, you rabies-ridden reptile. Someday, I will find you and I will destroy you."

"Have fun with that." Max said. She wanted to tell him 'not before I destroy you' but decided against it. She turned away from him, leaped at the wall, and began climbing. Digit perched on her shoulders and held on tight to her horns with both wings.

Max quickly and expertly scaled the wall without a problem. Her robotic eye, once again, helping her to see the holds in the volcano's interior wall where her claws could grab onto. Within minutes, Max had made it all the way up the volcano, sat back on her haunches, and leaped off the lip to the ground; her wings half-furled again like a parachute which carried them safely to the ground. Then, when her mismatched paws touched down, she started running and running hard and fast. She made it up the hill where her father and four friends were waiting, just before Mount Sevarius erupted.

The seven of them watched as the Grimm Wreaker was ejected from the volcano and sent well on its way.

"Well, all that leftover Magmelux has been destroyed." Inez said.

"At least you-know-who won't be able to use them." Max said.

"But neither will we." Digit pointed out.

"Yes. Unfortunately it will take eons for them to reformat." Marbles said.

Max bumped him with the top of her skull and he rubbed her thick mane, absentmindedly. "Don't worry about it, Dad. I'm sure Digit got a few out of there. Didn't you Didge?" She lifted him off her neck with her barbed tail and set him down to better see him.

Digit fidgeted with his wing-feathers, his face guiltily strained. "Uh, sorry Max. I, uh, I think I dropped the sack when I was going in to get Ivanka. It might have been in the volcano. Sorry."

Max nudged him with her scarred muzzle. "S'okay, Digit. It's probably for the best right now. As for the sack, I can just go back to Shangri-La and get another one. They kind of mass produced the stuff to begin with."

"Well, while we wait for the appropriate time, I must continue my research to find a cure for Motherboard." Marbles said, sadly. He faced his friends and daughter. "I am very glad to have known you all. Ivanka, thank you again for shielding me from _him_ all this time. My earth friends, thank you for coming to rescue me. Digit, thank you for trying to retrieve as much of the Magmelux as you could before the volcano erupted. And Max – dear Max – you stay out of harms way. If you-know-who catches you, I do not know if we will be able to save you."

Max sat back on her haunches, barbed tail laid carefully over her paws and wings folded over her shoulders and down her sides. "Don't worry about me, Dad. I'll be able to hide from him for some time now. At least until I'm ready to face off with him. When that time comes, he'll have to come to me instead of the other way around. I promise you that."

Marbles gave Max's head a pat, then planted a gentle kiss on her nose. "I will hold you to that, dear one." He climbed inside his coop and started up the engine. "Good-bye and good luck to you all."

As he drove away, everyone waved good-bye to a man on a mission to do what he did best – serve Motherboard. And Max knew she should take his words into consideration.

* * *

><p>1Running scene is a version of the running Bandersnatch in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland; edited by Tari J. Dieter<p>


	11. Absolem

_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.__  
><em>

* * *

><p>Chapter Eleven<br>Absolem

Since helping the Cybersquad rescue her father from Hacker's clutches, Max returned to her search for a new home away from home. And she was being very specific about the kind of place she wanted to stay in.

It had to be out of the way, uninhabited with intelligent life or cyborgs, and covered with a dense jungle just to toy with the Hacker's scanners – something Max loved doing more than anything else in all of Cyberspace.

Max and Marbles had ceased speaking to one another since communications could be picked up by anyone or anything. Communications could also be tracked and that was the last thing either one wanted. Max and Marbles also ceased speaking to Motherboard lest Hacker was monitoring Control Central's communications as well. In essence both Marbles had exiled themselves for the good of Cyberspace.

Max didn't know what Marbles was up to, or if he had located a new source to help him cure Motherboard's virus. She only wished she could've gone with him but quickly realized it was best if they remained split up. That way they could divide Hacker's attention between them which would provide them both with a chance to finish their tasks. As long as Hacker was focused on finding Max, Marbles could continue his research. And as long as Hacker was focused on finding Marbles, Max could spend her time looking for a hideout and figure out how best to get rid of him. But first, she had to find a hideout.

And she knew of someone who could help her.

1

Absolem1 Adair was an all-knowing and ever-vigilant borg. His very presence radiated wisdom. But his wisdom never came free.

Max knew that when she went to see him. She was reluctant to travel the distance to Absolem's Cybersite – a place known as Foresteria – but every borg she spoke to told her to talk to Absolem.

"Absolem can help you. He's absolute. He's Absolem." They would say.

Max let out a low growl, thanked those that did speak to her, and took off to find a new source. Again, she was directed to Absolem but Max had no desire to see Absolem. Not only did he charge a nominal fee for his information, but he was also known to give information away to anyone who wanted to know anything and had the snalfus to spend. Therefore, even Hacker could go to Absolem and ask anything in exchange for snalfus. Absolem was every willing to spread gossip which could work against Max no matter how she looked at it.

Finally out of any possible leads, Max turned her face to Foresteria and flew off to there. She stopped on the way to Foresteria at a bank and took a much valuables as she could out of her vault – aside from snalfus, Absolem was also a fan of trinkets which he could see at ridiculously high prices for snalfus – stuffed them in a sack she had borrowed from Shangri-La, and took off.

Foresteria was Cybersite covered entirely by trees. Warriors of Shangri-La were known to come and go, cutting off only bad branches from trees to make their ornate weapons. Max had come here, too, with a warrior crew and spent the night amongst the trees until she could understand the "voices of nature" as Master Pi had called it. Now, she came here for a different reason. And she didn't like why she was doing it.

Absolem lived in a house built into the side of a cave. He dug the cave out himself, a task which took several eons to complete, and built his own house, which took him a few more eons to complete. Rumor had it that Absolem had lived there since he left the Red Warriors eons ago. Rumor also told two different stories as to why he was living there. One, he deleted his superior officer in a fit of rage. And two – which was the most likely of cases – Absolem despised the company of others. Whether either was true or not was of no concern to Max. She was there for one reason and one reason alone.

"Absolem! Harken to me. A fellow warrior of Shangri-La calls to you." Max shouted as she stood at the base of a hillock below Absolem's house-cave.

The great wooden door opened and a slim figure, dressed in a skin-tight, ruby-red robe and a woven belt of blue around his waist, stepped out onto the hillock and stared down at the gargoyle blow him. Absolem's hard features looked like they had been carved out of steel with a blunt chisel, and maybe they were. His skin was a dark-caramel color, his dark eyes slanted, and his black hair was long and gathered into a knot at the top of his head. From his lip sprouted a thin fu man chu. And he carried a long, twisting staff carved out of the wood of Cyber-oak tree and polished from eons of use.

Max inclined her head with as much politeness as she could muster for a deserter of the same warrior caste she had learned from in eons past.

"Absolem. I am Max. I humbly come before you to seek your help."

Absolem said nothing but seated himself on the hillock in a cross-legged position and laid his staff over his lap. He nodded for Max to continue.

"Days of darkness are coming upon us and I fear they will be here soon. Master Pi has selected me for a dangerous mission. A mission to stop the darkness and draw out the evil that spreads in our world like poison that is drawn from a wound. Will you not help me?" Max raised her head, this time and her pink eye met the gaze of Absolem's obsidian ones.

Absolem remained silent for a time while he continued to stare down at the humbled gargoyle.

"Your reputation proceeds you, Max Marbles. You call yourself a warrior of Shangri-La. But you are no warrior of Shangri-La. You are a deserter, like myself. Only you still answer to the call of the gong when Master Pi summons you while I am free to ignore his summons." Absolem said.

Max trembled at the harsh truth he had just spoken. True, she had deserted before Master Pi could call her in to be admitted as a Shield-maiden, but her loyalties still lie with the warriors and the master who stood with her the entire time she was in training.

"There are few who are privy to that information." Max said, plopping into a sit. "How do you know who and what I am?"

Absolem shrugged. "To know that comes with a fee. But I do not think that is what you came here for."

"No, I have not." Max shrugged the sack from around her neck. Then, she hooked the sack's strap over her tail and placed the sack carefully in front of Absolem. "I've come to you because no one else knows where I should go. All the signs point to you, for you are all-knowing and ever-vigilant. You can help me with this task. I need only answers to two questions."

Absolem stared the sack. "You bring valuables. Obviously you do not have money to give me."

"No. Any snalfus I had I gave to Motherboard and my father for their own needs. What is in this sack, are all the valuables I am willing to present to you."

"What kind of valuables?"

"Gifts from my time at Shangri-La. I have no use for them. Not at this time."

Absolem seemed to think about this a moment. Then, "Very well, I shall answer two questions. Only two, as you have requested." He said.

Max dragged the sack toward her with her tail. "I'll pay whatever price you desire."

"You have nothing else in that sack I want. Anything else will cost you what you do not have." Absolem said.

_Whatever that's supposed to mean._ Max thought.

Absolem waved a hand at her. "You may begin your questions now."

"I need a place to stay. A place out of the way, uninhabited by all life except for that of nature, and contains a dense jungle so no scanners can find me. Do you know of any such place?" Max said.

"You want to remain in exile, is that it?"Absolem asked.

"Yes. Until the time when I must rise up and purge Cyberspace of the evil that is coming." Max answered.

Absolem continued to stare, unblinkingly, at Max. Then, "So, you have been given a mission – a mission you are unprepared or unready to do. You have been given the task to destroy the borg known as The Hacker, is that it?"

Max growled deep in her chest at the mention of his name, but she needed Absolem alive so she did not attack him. Her pink eye flashed, dangerously. "That is true." She said.

"I thought as much." Absolem said. He leaned back and stared straight up at Foresteria's sky. "You are on a fool's errand, Max Marbles. If you weren't ready to take up the mantle of Shield-maiden before you deserted, you are surely not ready for this task that has been set before you. Master Pi, for all his wisdom, has given you a task you cannot and will not be able to finish. You know this, do you not?"

"I may not be ready now, but I soon will be."

Absolem shook his head. "No you will not. You failed to come before the Red Warriors and accept the mantle of Shield-maiden. Therefore, you will fail at this task as well."

"Not after everything he's done to me. I will defeat him because of everything he's done to me."

"That is precisely why you will fail." Absolem pointed out.

"Explain." Max said with a headtilt.

Absolem sighed. "You carry hate in your heart. You hate him because he tortured you. You hate him because he nearly killed you. You hate him because he made you into something you're not. You desire vengeance, and when someone does something out of vengeance it will always return to them ten-fold. Hate and vengeance cannot exist in the heart of a Shield-maiden. It will only lead to trouble."

"Well, as you said I am not a Shield-maiden. And I'm not doing it for me."

"Oh but you are doing it for yourself. It has always been about you, never about anyone else."

"No. I'm doing it for my father and for Motherboard."

"Are you?"

"Of course I am."

"So, you're telling me that you don't really hate him. You don't really despise him for the hours of torture he placed upon you. You don't really despise him for transforming you into the very creature Cyber-citizens hate. And, you don't hate him for the loss of your arm, leg, and left eye. Is that what you mean?"

"I do hate him for all that and more, yes." Max admitted after a pause.

"Which is why you will fail."

"I won't fail."

"Yes, you will." Absolem said. "You will fail because of everything you just admitted to. You are not a warrior of Shangri-La, you are not a Shield-maiden, you hate your enemy, and you desire vengeance. Four reasons why you will surely fail in your mission. Not to mention, you are running away from your problem."

"I'm not running."

"But of course you are. Why else are you looking for a place to hide away? True, you don't want him to find you because you will surely be destroyed when he does. So, in essence, you are running."

"Am not!" Max protested.

"Are too." Absolem said in the same, exact tone Max had used.

"I am not running. I need a place of solitude. Master Pi gave me this task with only one requirement. I had to destroy the evil with no more force than is necessary. I'm a gargoyle. Force is in my nature now. I need a place where I can think – where I can meditate – on how best to do this."

"And what will Master Pi give you in return for your efforts? A new life? A new body? What?" Absolem asked.

"He will give me my body back. That's all I need is my cyborg body back."

"That is not all you need."

"Explain." Another headtilt.

"You need forgiveness. When you destroy your enemy, you must also forgive him. He tortured and mutated you, that much is true. He almost killed you as well, yet here you are. His evil has spread throughout Cyberspace like a plague. You have had eons to destroy him, yet you hid like a coward."

"I wasn't ready."

"You still aren't."

"I will be."

"Not until you can tell yourself you can forgive him for every evil he has ever done. Not just the evil he has done against you, but every evil he had ever done against your creator and Motherboard. Everything. The virus, the kidnappings, the attempted deletings. All of it. Can you do that?"

"Not yet." Max said. "And maybe not ever."

Absolem sighed. "I'm going to give you a little bit of advice, Max, only because I like you. You have a good heart and a wonderful soul. You remind me of me when I was your age, only I was never a female nor was I turned into a gargoyle and tortured to near nonexistence and insanity."

"Get on with it." Max said.

Absolem smiled. "That's another quality we share. We're both impatient." Max glared and Absolem laughed which was strangely light compared to his rough features. "And we both have spunk."

Max's glare deepened.

"Very well. Here is my advice. Forget about him." Absolem said.

* * *

><p>1The name "Absolem" is taken from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland<p>


	12. Chased by the Devil

_I don't own Cyberchase. Max is mine.  
><em>

* * *

><p>Chapter Twelve<br>Chased by the Devil

"What? I can't do that! I have to do this, don't you understand? I have to." Max said.

"No, you just think you do. Just because Master Pi told you to, you think you have to do it." Absolem said.

"That's why I have to do it." Max said.

"No, you don't."

"Yes I do."

"Why you, though? Why did Master Pi pick you out of the crowd? He must have tons of warriors he can call upon to do this task. Aside from your ordeal at his hands, why did Master Pi pick you?"

"Because if I won't do it, nobody else will. There are only two other people that can do it and they won't. Motherboard is too gentle to even consider it and she believes all life is precious. The only thing Dad will do is reformat him. Reformatting him won't really change who and what he is."

"Neither will deleting him. Even if you remove the sword, the wound will heal but a scar will still remain."

Max opened her mouth to protest but closed it when she realized the wisdom behind Absolem's words. Somehow, there is a Shangri-La philosophy for every aspect of life.

Absolem waited for Max to say something and, though he could only see the top of her white head, he knew she was considering everything he said so far. Finally, he sighed.

"If you will not accept that advice, then consider this one. Make no moves until your heart has been opened to forgiveness. If you cannot forgive, then you forfeit your mission. If you can, then call your enemy to you. Only then can you defeat him with a clearer conscience."

Max bowed, again. "Thank you for your advice, Absolem. You have just answered my second question. Now, how about answer my first."

"There is a Cybersite that is uninhabited aside from a few cyber-beasts. They will not mind if another cyber-beast comes to live among them. The site is called Eco-haven. It has been touched by his evil only a couple of times but he is not likely to go there again. The site has everything you need. Solitude and a dense forest which no scanner can pierce. You have only to stay in the forest to remain undetected."

"Why Eco-haven? This site looks dense enough." Max said.

"Are you kidding me? I don't want trouble coming here." Absolem said.

Max smiled and Absolem realized he had just been the target of a joke.

"Oh, haha. You made a funny. Now, pay up." He said.

Max tossed the sack up to Absolem who caught it and rummaged through the contents. He took out three items: a silver chalice rimmed with precious jewels from the reflection pools of Shangri-La, a bronze shield that had once been carried by the first Shield-maiden of Shangri-La, and a scroll containing a warrior's prayer. Having picked out the items he wanted, Absolem tossed the sack back to its owner. Max stared at the things he took.

"Three items?"

"You asked three questions." Absolem said. "Well, technically four now but I would rather not split hairs about that matter."

Max looped the sack back around her neck and adjusted it so it fit between her wings. "Thank you, Absolem."

"Now begone. Our business is done here."

Max bowed and took off at a flying run.

0

Unfortunately for Max, Hacker had already tracked her to Foresteria and had been lying in wait. One of his henchmen, Baskerville, had contacted Hacker to tell him that he had spotted Max and that she was on her way to visit Absolem on Foresteria. So Hacker went and waited, his scanners useless against the dense vegetation covering the site but he knew Max was there. He had seen her land on the site and head off into the forest. No sooner had her tailtip disappeared into the line of trees than Hacker's scanners stopped working. Hacker snarled and whacked the terminal with his fist. Still nothing.

"Problem, Boss?" Delete asked.

"I can't see Max from here." Hacker snapped. "I don't know what she's up to."

"Want us to go down and find out, Boss?" Buzz asked.

Hacker considered it and said, "No. She's bound to come out of there, eventually. And when she does, we'll snatch her."

Both robots applauded their approval, as they always do when Hacker reveals his plans to them, except when they have a question regarding his plan and tools.

Then, they waited. Hacker patiently stared at the viewer while the duncebuckets fooled around with tools from previous schemes. The robots were exceedingly loud with some tools and even argued over who got to play with what. It all annoyed Hacker and when he was about to scold the stupid robots, he saw _her_ – Max – flying out of Foresteria. Her wings flapping hard and strong to gain altitude.

"There she is, boys." Hacker announced, proudly. "Hang on, we're going in."

1

Some sixth sense told Max she was being followed. Eons of basic training on Shangri-La taught her not to ignore the ominous feeling itching at her brain. She glanced over her shoulder and gasped when she saw it – the Grimm Wreaker. For the first time, Max knew the definition of fear.

"_You!_ " Max said in amazement.

"Hello, Max!" Hacker said over a loudspeaker. "Did you miss me?"

"You couldn't pay me to miss you, especially with a face like that, Rhino-chin." Max said, impudently.

She imagined Hacker quivering with anger. "You'll regret saying that, you rabies-ridden reptile. Once I catch you, you will regret everything."

"You know, you really need to come up with better insults. You called me a rabies-ridden reptile only a few days ago. You're smart, you should be able to do better than that." Max said. She had already started dialing an SOS to Motherboard.

"Well, for someone who also possesses the same amount as brainpower as myself, I would've expected a better insult from you than that. Rhino-chin? Really? That is so childish, Max." Hacker scoffed, starting up the thruster engine sequence from his chair.

"I'd hate to tell you this,_ Rhino-chin_, but I am a child." She said, putting emphasis on her now favorite insult. "Having said that, try to catch me if you can."

Max's wings tipped forward and with a thrust of her feet, she propelled herself forward. Behind her, she heard the Grimm Wreaker's thrusters reach maximum power and rocket toward her. Max swore under her breath and rolled onto her side for a zig, then on the other side for a zag. She went up, down, side to side, and did several loop-de-loops which should have been impossible for the Grimm Wreaker to follow. Amazingly enough, Hacker followed her movements perfectly and without delay.

"_Come on!_" Max growled in frustration. She rolled on her back and began the steep dive toward the very depths of Cyberspace; her wings pulled tight against her body and the wind whistled over her wedge-shaped body.

Surprisingly, Hacker followed her. The Grimm Wreaker's nose barely brushing against the tip of her barbed tail.

The pressure getting too much, Max quickly unfurled her wings and she shot up like a feather in an updraft. Hacker pulled back on the controls, halting the Wreaker's descent. He changed the viewer so he saw all angles of Cyberspace on all screens. When he spotted Max, he switched on the thrusters again and zoomed after her.

"You never give up, do you?" Max demanded.

"Nevah!" Hacker shot back.

"Admit it, Funnel-gut, your ship is too wide and too heavy for half the stuff I can do in this body. Eons of evolution have made us the perfect flying machine." Max said.

Hacker shook with anger. _Funnel-gut? Where does she come up with these insults? They're even more pathetic than mine! Wait, did I just say my insults were pathetic? Grr._

"Well, your gargoyle body is missing something my ship has." Hacker announced.

"Like what?" Max said.

"Fire power."

Hacker punched the thrust button and his ship zoomed forward until its nose was almost touching Max's barb again. Max did another spiraling roll which took her away from the Grimm Wreaker.

Which was precisely what Hacker wanted.

Hacker stared at the widened view screen. A flip of a switch brought up a cross-hair targeting system. The Wreaker's cargobay opened and a gun dropped out. The targeting system beeped as it centered on Max's rear end and Hacker fired.

Max felt the smallest prick of a feather-tipped needle impale her backside. Before Max knew what was happening, she felt dizzy and her eyes grew heavy. Her wings stopped beating and she began to drop.

The tranquilizer gun was replaced with a claw which snatched Max out of the air and drew her up into the ship's cargo bay

"What was that you were saying about 'catch me if you can'?" Hacker taunted.


	13. Author's Note

Author's Note_  
><em>

_Original note:_

To my dear readers.

I must apologize but I'm going to cut this story a little short. I did say that it would be a short story but there is a variety of reasons for why I'm doing what I am doing.

First of all, this story has been what I would consider "light". Yes, I said light. But that is all it has been. This story is only going to get darker from their. To my readers that are within the age range for K+, if you are not bothered by dark stories, then by all means continue reading. I have enjoyed writing to you and I hope you will continue reading.

Two, I felt that my short description only describes the first half of the story but I can't edit it to fit the rest of it. Therefore, there will be a second story. Because of this, I have edited my data so that this story is now book one.

Third, I have also changed the title of this story from Evil Within to A Tortured Soul. So, those of you who subscribed to Evil Within will still be getting alerts for A Tortured Soul.

Four, the second book will be called "Cyberchase: A Warrior Reborn" and will be a continuation from "A Tortured Soul". So, keep your eyes peeled for this new update. I shall let you know when it has been finished.

Anyway, thanks again for sticking with me. You will recieve the next update soon.

* * *

><p><em>New Note<em>:

Book two has now been posted. Enjoy.


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